1963 "Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude control system" by Edward Zajac at Bell Labs

Edward E. Zajac, a scientist at Bell Telephone Laboratory (BTL), created a film called "Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude control system" in 1963. In this computer generated film, Zajac demonstrate that a satellite could be stabilized to always have a side facing the earth as it orbited. He created the animation on an IBM 7090 mainframe computer Stromberg-Calson 4020 film recorder, programmed in FORTRAN.

		The basic transformation needed to make a perspective drawing is mathematically trivial to state. This fact along with the advent of plotting devices means that perspective drawings can be completely produced by machine. Furthermore, a microfilm printer such as tile General Dynamics Electronics S-C 4020 plots rapidly and directly on a sequence of film frames. Thus as the direct output of the microfilm printer, one may obtain a movie, ready for immediate viewing and with each frame drawn in perspective to render a three-dimensional representation.
Top view anim of orbit.

Zajac wrote a programme to compute each frame of the film as a black-and-white line drawing based upon the position of the satellite at a given time. The computer than drew the image on a cathode ray tube being photographed by a movie camera. After each frame was completed, the computer advanced the film to the next frame and then drew the next image on the CRT. The scientific community must have been much encouraged by Zajac's claim that the cost of filming 42 seconds of his film was a mere $30.

In the computer-made movies, the satellite is represented as a domino-shaped box, with plus signs used to identify the various sides. Also, the spin vectors of the gyros and the gyro stops are projected onto two sides of the box. This enables the viewer to follow the action of the gyros as well as that of the satellite proper. The closely-spaced drawings of the domino box, in the style of rapid-sequence photography, show the satellite completing one orbit around a stationary earth. In the movie, the earth turns as the satellite goes around.
		Another angle of orbit.

		The use of vector displays for scientific film making was popularized among scientists, this computer graphics film "Simulation of a two-giro Gravity-Gradient Attitude Control System" was widely seen by scientists, at least in the form of still pictures published in the journal New Scientist (February 1966). The New Scientist article demonstrated the technique and its effectiveness, and gave examples of similar work using computer graphics for applications in research, such as Flow of a Viscous Fluid and Propagation of Shock Waves in a Solid from the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and Vibration of an Aircraft from Boeing.
View of the orbit box.

Zajac's work, Sinden's films (eg, Force, Mass and Motion) and studies by Noll in the area of stereo pairs (eg, Simulated basilar membrane motion) were some of the earliest contributions to what is now known as scientific visualization.

1964 E. E. Zajac, Computer-made perspective movies as a scientific and communication tool

1966 Film Animation by Computer by Dr E. E. Zajac, Bell Telephone Laboratories (New Scientist 10 Feb 1966)