# Nobody modelled this duck. It began as one flat line.

- Series: [How It's Clipped](https://miu.fm/howitsclipped.md)
- Published: 2026-10-13
- Page: https://miu.fm/howitsclipped/nobody-modelled-this-duck-it-began-as-one-flat-line-so-how

## Story

Nobody modelled this duck. It began as one flat line. So how does a line know how thick to be?

Turn a drawing and it is gone. Animators call the cure solid drawing: giving a flat shape volume and weight. In a computer the volume is real, but somebody has to build it, and modelling systems were "difficult and tedious to use when creating freeform surfaces". In 1999 Takeo Igarashi, Satoshi Matsuoka and Hidehiko Tanaka wanted it from one drawn line. The same thickness everywhere gives you cardboard. Their answer is in the line itself: its width. Find the middle of the shape, its spine, then "elevate the vertices of the spine by an amount proportional to their distance" from the line, and wrap the surface so that "sections form ovals". The result: "wide areas become fat, and narrow areas become thin." First-time users were making their own models within ten minutes. It only knows round, though: draw a box and you get a pillow. Its makers named it Teddy and said plainly what it is for: "the rapid construction of approximate models, not for the careful editing of precise models."

The duck, the box, the fish, the star and the bunny are our own drawings, made solid by our own version of the rule; no models or figures from the paper.

What would you draw first?

Sources: Takeo Igarashi, Satoshi Matsuoka and Hidehiko Tanaka, "Teddy: A Sketching Interface for 3D Freeform Design", SIGGRAPH 1999; John Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", SIGGRAPH 1987.
Sounds: Apple iMovie and iLife sound effects.

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