The First Man (Boeing Man) by William Fetter

Artwork · North America · Top Moment

A seated human figure drawn as black computer-generated contour lines on a pale sheet. — William Fetter, Boeing Man: Human Figure, Sitting (front view), shown in a 1967 UPI press print. The computer figure was developed at Boeing from 1964. William Alan Fetter / Boeing. United Press International press print, 1967. Ragnar Digital collection. Image source.

At Boeing in Seattle, where Fetter moved in 1963, he and his team were the first to draw a human figure using a computer. Fetter had previously worked at Boeing to create some of the earliest computer graphics of a flight simulation in 1960. This 3D image of the human body with computer graphics was groundbreaking for its time and is still known famously as Boeing Man.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

historylink.org

People

William Fetter

Movements

computer animation, computer art

Filed under

Ideas: simulation
Technologies: 3D Graphics, computer animation, computer art, computer graphics
People: William Fetter
Works: The First Man (Boeing Man)
Organisations: Boeing
Places: Seattle

Related moments

1960 · William Fetter Creates the First Computer Graphics

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