Ever wondered how to become famous in science? This paper presents the history of something that is now famous in science--the Kalman filter.

Welch describes the principles of this simple but smart and effective filter that was invented in the 1950s and first published by Rudolph E. Kalman in 1960, and how it made its way into virtual and augmented reality. The paper walks along a timeline that starts from the first principles, and then describes the use and adaptation by key individuals--including the author himself--and research projects, along with the reasons for its success.

This is an excellent paper, written by someone who knows the field very well. I very strongly recommend it to everybody, even readers who are not computer graphics specialists.