What is the Utah Teapot?

The Utah Teapot

The Utah teapot may seem like an average looking teapot to many but to some it's instantly recognizable.  Also known as the Newell teapot because of its creator Martin Newell who at the time was a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah.  Newell created this teapot after discussing  with his wife about what he should make into a 3D model , they were drinking tea and so she suggested he make a model of their teapot. The teapot was so simple and yet it was perfect, it had features that made a great test object for renders mainly because of it's design but also the fact it required no texture for a proper display. A sketch was made of the teapot and using a computer the coordinates were put in. Newell used Bézier curves to give it's curves a smooth look.

Because Newell let his model be used by others it made people interested in computer graphics to not have to manually enter every coordinate to make an object for themselves. Eventually it became so widely used it was recognized as an extremely important model in computer graphics history. The teapot can be found in many games and computer generated movies as an easter egg. The original Teacup resides in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Many 3D softwares include the model as an object that can be used in it. Although the original didn't actually have a bottom it was later added making it a complete teapot.

Friesland Porzellan the company that made the actual teapot which Newell used as a reference for the Utah teapot only found out about its significance in the computer graphics industry in 2017, they then renamed it from "Haushalts Teekanne" which in german means "Household teapot" to "Utah teapot".

The Utah teapot was not the only notable thing being used for testing computer graphics though, others such as the Stanford bunny, the Stanford dragon, the Cornell box, Suzanne(Blender), and 3DBenchy(Possibly the most 3d printed object) to name a few.

 The company Emerging Objects makes a 3D printed Utah teapot which is actually made out of tea.

The Utah teapot has made its mark on computer graphics history and even though it's just a simple teapot it's still being used today by people who are learning 3D graphics and by professionals.

The Utah teapot in Toy Story

Martin Newell's original teapot sketch

Emerging Objects 3D printed Utah teapot out of tea.

This article was written by Sam Warner