David A. Smith at work in 2005.

David Alan Smith (born 1957 in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina) is an American computer scientist who has focused on interactive 3D and using 3D as a basis for new user environments and entertainment for almost twenty years. He began his programming life as a corporate analyst at Thermo Electron Corporation, where he worked to develop an enterprise-wide multi-user multidimensional hierarchical spreadsheet program in the APL programming language. In 1982, Smith went to work for Richard Greenblatt and Lucia Vaina as a programmer for Softrobotics, an affiliate of Lisp Machines, Inc. where he worked to develop an expert system for the diagnosis of brain damage using an Apple II as the front end to a Lisp Machine. In 1984, he moved back to the Special Projects Laboratory at Thermo Electron to work for Stelianos Pezaris (Sutherland-Pezaris headmount and Pezaris Array Multiplier), where he designed a process control application and helped to design a multiprocessor distributed controller architecture for a robotic PC plating system. Smith then moved to the Thomas Lord Research Center in 1986 as a staff scientist working on intelligent object manipulation using robotic tactile sensors, pneumo-elastic and mechanical hands. There he developed a telepresence system using stereo-optics and a dataglove controlling a Puma-560 robot equipped with the pneumo-elastic hand. 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Official language(s) English Capital Raleigh Largest city Charlotte Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 28th 139,509 km² 805 km 240 km 9. ... Computer science (informally: CS or compsci) is, in its most general sense, the study of computation and information processing, both in hardware and in software. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... APL (for A Programming Language, or sometimes Array Processing Language) is an array programming language based on a notation invented in 1957 by Kenneth E. Iverson while at Harvard University. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Richard D. Greenblatt is a programmer. ... A programmer or software developer is someone who programs computers, i. ... The original Lisp machine built by Greenblatt and Knight Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed (usually through hardware support) to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. ... An expert system is a class of computer programs developed by researchers in artificial intelligence during the 1970s and applied commercially throughout the 1980s. ... The original Lisp machine built by Greenblatt and Knight Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed (usually through hardware support) to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... In practical usage, a robot is a mechanical device which performs automated tasks, either according to direct human supervision, a pre-defined program or, a set of general guidelines, using artificial intelligence techniques. ... It has been proposed that Telerobotics be merged and redirected into this article. ... A wired glove is a glove-like input device for virtual reality environments. ... For other uses, see Robot (disambiguation). ...

In 1987, Smith created "The Colony," the very first 3D interactive game and precursor to today's first-person shooters. The game was developed for the Apple Macintosh and soon won the "Best Adventure Game of the Year" award from MacWorld Magazine. In 1989, Smith used the technologies developed for the game to create a virtual set and virtual camera system that was used by James Cameron for the movie The Abyss. Based upon this experience, Smith founded Virtus Corporation in 1990 and developed Virtus Walkthrough, the first real-time 3D design application for personal computers. Smith also co-founded several other companies including Red Storm Entertainment with Tom Clancy, Timeline Computer Entertainment with Michael Crichton, and Neomar, a wireless enterprise infrastructure company. He is currently one of six principal architects of the Croquet project (along with Alan Kay, Julian Lombardi, Andreas Raab, David P. Reed, and Mark McCahill). 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Colony was a computer game released in 1988 by Mindscape for the Apple Macintosh. ... ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to 512KB. The Macintosh, or Mac, line of personal computers is designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... James Cameron from Ghosts of the Abyss James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian-born American film director noted for his action/science fiction films, which are often extremely successful financially. ... The Abyss is an award-winning science fiction film from 1989, written and directed by James Cameron, starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. ... This article is about the year. ... Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. ... Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton (born October 23, 1942, pronounced /kɹaɪtən/ ) is an author, film producer and television producer. ... The Croquet Project is an international effort that has developed the open source, collaborative, multi-media authoring, simulation modeling, and self-publication technology called Croquet to fundamentally improve the nature of learning for humanity and the nature of work for the information worker. ... Alan Kay, born May 17, 1940, is an American computer scientist, known for his early work on object-oriented programming and user interface design. ... Julian Lombardi in 2006. ... David P. Reed is an American computer scientist, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known for a number of significant contributions to computer networking. ... Mark McCahill (born February 7, 1956) has been involved in developing and popularizing a number of Internet technologies since the late 1980s. ...

External links

• David A. Smith's blog