When and who introduced the idea of a scene graph? Simple question: is there a source that precedes the idea of presenting graphical application or 3D scene in a scene graph?
I came across Hierarchical geometric models for visible surface algorithms which introduces the idea of having the geometry in easily searchable and cullable format. So I wonder if this is the father of the idea of having scene graph, or has there been something published earlier with this idea.
Not 3D as such, but it seems in 1963 Ivan Sutherland's seminal &quot;Sketchpad&quot; (and wikipedia) had instancing. eg. See &quot;Chapter VI RECURSIVE FUNCTIONS&quot; of the 2nd reference.
IIRC somewhere there's a video of it in action - it made me annoyed as to how some of today's vector drawing tools don't seem to be able to do some of what sketchpad appeared to support.
Update: @Joojaa has kindly located a video   or this