Utah teapot

The most famous test object in graphics started as a real Melitta teapot on a kitchen table. In the mid-1970s Utah graduate student Martin Newell needed something to model in 3D, his wife Sandra suggested their teapot, and he built it from Bézier patches, curved surface pieces instead of flat polygons. The model stuck because it is a near-perfect torture test: curves, a hole in the handle, a spout that casts shadows on the body, and enough concavity to expose bad shading. Newell shared the coordinates and researchers everywhere adopted it as a benchmark. The original porcelain pot now sits in the Computer History Museum, and the digital one made cameos in Toy Story and Monsters, Inc.