Steve Rutt, an engineer, inventor and artist whose early video animation system made images expand and contract and leap and dance, and in so doing helped propel the video-art revolution of the 1970s, died May 20 in Manhattan. He was 66.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his daughter, Victoria Rutt.

With Bill Etra, Rutt developed the Rutt/Etra video synthesizer in 1972. An analog device that lets the user manipulate a video signal in real time, it offered a means of producing animated images and special effects long before the advent of digital video technology.

The device was used by some of the most notable video artists of the period, including Nam June Paik.