Probably the first general purpose system for defining 3D animation was Woody Anderson's CAMPER system. It was aimed at users with little understanding of computer programs. The FORTRAN program was widely available and all the user had to do was punch a deck or cards, run CAMPER and send the magnetic tape generated off to an SC4020 for generating the film.

CAMPER had a simple coordinate system with (x,y,z) going from (0,0,0) to (12,12,9). The object was viewed from a point(X,Y,Z) looking towards (0,0,0).

There was a set set of 2-dimensional objects (circle, rectangle, triangle, clock, arrow, cross) and a 3-dimensional box all of which could be moved about in 3-dimensions.

Once the user was proficient with these they could define the lines of a 3D object of their own choosing.

A longer description of CAMPER can be found in CAMP and CAMPER on Atlas.