bond@alpha.ces.cwru.edu (angus bond) (10/06/89)
I am trying to track down the origin of the words "pixel" and "voxel" for two reasons: (1) I am curious and (2) problems at the USA Patent and Trademark Office. As we all know, "pixel" stands for "picture element" and "voxel" stands for "volume picture element". Does anyone know who originated these terms? The earliest reference that I can find for "pixel" is in the October 1975 Scientific American. The earliest reference that I can find for "voxel" is in Computer Graphics and Image Processing, Volume 6, #2, pp.123-134 (1977) in a paper by H. K. Liu. I suspect that at some conference or workshop somewhere, someone said "I am tired of saying `picture element', let's call it `pixel'." and similarly for "voxel". Can someone tell me when this happened? I would also like to know of any subseqent definitions of these terms in print, the reason for which you can see below. PROBLEMS AT THE USA PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ----------------------------------------------- I work for Reality Imaging Corporation and we make a 3-D imaging workstation called a Voxel Flinger. We are trying to get this name trademarked. The bureaucrats there (people with a good heart but ignorant of our trade) say that the name cannot be trademarked because someone else is trying to trademark the word Voxel. Even worse, this someone is close to getting this trademark. What we need to do is present a solid case that these words have a long history and that they are terms of common usage. IF YOU COULD SEND ME ANY REFERENCES TO THE ORIGIN OF THESE WORDS, I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT. I will post the results later. My addresses: Reality Imaging Corporation, P.O. Box 39097, Solon, Ohio, 44139, USA bond@alpha.cwru.edu (216) 349-2548 (work) (216) 368-5506 (school) Thanks, Angus Bond.