William Latham was born in 1961, Initially he trained as a printmaker, sculptor and animator and obtained a Bachelor in Fine Arts from Oxford University and an M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London. In 1987 he became a Research Fellow at the Graphics Applications Group at the IBM UK Scientific Centre in Winchester. He is an active artist and has exhibited bis computer artworks internationally in the USA, Portugal, West Germany and Australia and his work has been shown widely in Great Britain. The film "A Sequence from the Evolution of Form" won first prize in the Research Category at "The Imagina Computer Graphics Conference 1990" in Monte Carlo.

"A Sequence from the Evolution of Form" is a new computer art film created at IBM UK Scientific Centre. The film shows the continual metamorphosis of a complex 3D form. A 3D form metamorphoses from a swirling random cloud of eggs into starfish structure and then changes shape into a webbed plant form.

Technical Background

The film was produced using the WINSOM Solid Modelling Program and "Form Growing" programs written in the ESME language.

The film is of particular interest in that the key frames for the animation were created using a new "evolutionary" interface, which uses a combination of random mutation and artistic selection. The moving forms are made to appear realistic by using 3D texturing, ray casting and multiple light sources.

The work is a result of creative collaboration between the artist William Latham and the scientists Stephen Todd and Peter Quarendon.