ACU Program Begins

According to Tom White, ACU, a key predecessor of Processing formed in 1998. Before Processing, MIT’s Aesthetics and Computation Group (ACG) was already innovating, with the ACU toolkit, a C++ and OpenGL-based precursor that underpinned screen-based projects within the Aesthetics and Computation Group from 1999 to 2002. Preceding iterations like acWorlds and acJava paved the path, while echoes of earlier projects, such as Bob Sabiston’s “BadWindows” in the vlw era, reverberated through its development. ACU, in particular, provided a foundational structure for interactive graphics research, fueling endeavors in dynamic typography, visual programming systems, audio-visual environments and information visualization. ACU was thus a key pre-Processeing MIT ACG development.