Computer Graphics

– Computer Graphics Art Animatio Essay, Research Paper

Computer Graphics – computer graphics art animationIntroductionHollywood has gone digital, and the old ways of doing things are dying. Animation andspecial effects created with computers have been embraced by television networks,advertisers, and movie studios alike. Film editors, who for decades worked by painstakinglycutting and gluing film segments together, are now sitting in front of computer screens.There, they edit entire features while adding sound that is not only stored digitally, butalso has been created and manipulated with computers. Viewers are witnessing the results ofall this in the form of stories and experiences that they never dreamed of before. Perhapsthe most surprising aspect of all this, however, is that the entire digital effects andanimation industry is still in its infancy. The future looks bright. How It WasIn the beginning, computer graphics were as cumbersome and as hard to control as dinosaursmust have been in their own time. Like dinosaurs, the hardware systems, or muscles, ofearly computer graphics were huge and ungainly. The machines often filled entire buildings. Also like dinosaurs, the software programs or brains of computer graphics were hopelesslyunderdeveloped. Fortunately for the visual arts, the evolution of both brains and brawn ofcomputer graphics did not take eons to develop. It has, instead, taken only three decadesto move from science fiction to current technological trends. With computers out of thestone age, we have moved into the leading edge of the silicon era. Imagine sitting at acomputer without any visual feedback on a monitor. There would be no spreadsheets, no wordprocessors, not even simple games like solitaire. This is what it was like in the earlydays of computers. The only way to interact with a computer at that time was through toggleswitches, flashing lights, punchcards, and Teletype printouts. How It All BeganIn 1962, all this began to change. In that year, Ivan Sutherland, a Ph.D. student at (MIT),created the science of computer graphics. For his dissertation, he wrote a program calledSketchpad that allowed him to draw lines of light directly on a cathode ray tube (CRT). Theresults were simple and primitive. They were a cube, a series of lines, and groups ofgeometric shapes. This offered an entirely new vision on how computers could be used. In1964, Sutherland teamed up with Dr. David Evans at the University of Utah to develop theworld’s first academic computer graphics department. Their goal was to attract only the mostgifted students from across the country by creating a unique department that combined hardscience with the creative arts. They new they were starting a brand new industry and wantedpeople who would be able to lead that industry out of its infancy. Out of this unique mix ofscience and art, a basic understanding of computer graphics began to grow. Algorithms forthe creation of solid objects, their modeling, lighting, and shading were developed. Thisis the roots virtually every aspect of today’s computer graphics industry is based on.Everything from desktop publishing to virtual reality find their beginnings in the basicresearch that came out of the University of Utah in the 60’s and 70’s. During this time,Evans and Sutherland also founded the first computer graphics company. Aptly named Evans &Sutherland (E&S), the company was established in 1968 and rolled out its first computergraphics systems in 1969. Up until this time, the only computers available that couldcreate pictures were custom-designed for the military and prohibitively expensive. E&S’scomputer system could draw wireframe images extremely rapidly, and was the first commercial”workstation” created for computer-aided design (CAD). It found its earliest customers inboth the automotive and aerospace industries. Times Were ChangingThroughout its early years, the University of Utah’s Computer Science Department wasgenerously supported by a series of research grants from the Department of Defense. The1970’s, with its anti-war and anti-military protests, brought increasing restriction to theflows of academic grants, which had a direct impact on the Utah department’s ability tocarry out research. Fortunately, as the program wound down, Dr. Alexander Schure, founderand president of New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), stepped forward with his dream ofcreating computer-animated feature films. To accomplish this task, Schure hired EdwinCatmull, a University of Utah Ph.D., to head the NYIT computer graphics lab and thenequipped the lab with the best computer graphics hardware available at that time. Whencompleted, the lab boasted over $2 million worth of equipment. Many of the staff came fromthe University of Utah and were given free reign to develop both two- and three-dimensionalcomputer graphics tools. Their goal was to soon produce a full -length computer animatedfeature film. The effort, which began in 1973, produced dozens of research papers andhundreds of new discoveries, but in the end, it was far too early for such a complexundertaking. The computers of that time were simply too expensive and too under powered, andthe software not nearly developed enough. In fact, the first full length computer generatedfeature film was not to be completed until recently in 1995. By 1978, Schure could no longerjustify funding such an expensive effort, and the lab’s funding was cut back. The ironic