This document provides an overview of a 12-week module on interaction and visualization. It includes contact details for the instructor, required and recommended course texts, and outlines the module content which covers topics like the history of computer graphics, hardware and software support, 2D and 3D clipping, and scan conversion. Application areas discussed include CAD, presentations, art, entertainment, education, and data visualization. Related disciplines of image processing and human-computer interaction are also mentioned.

1. Interaction & Visualisation
A 12-week Module
Eur Ing Dr Peter Nicholl
School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences

2. 1/2 - 2
Contact Details
• E-mail
p.nicholl@ulst.ac.uk
• Office
16E08
• Telephone
From outside: 028 9036 8910 (Internally: 8910)
Mobile: 07967144854 or #6500
• Secretary
Miss Sharon Kelly, 16J19

3. 1/2 - 3
Course Texts
• Required reading
– Computer Graphics (2nd edition), D. Hearn &
M.P. Baker, pub. Prentice-Hall, 1994/7
(ISBN 0-13-161530-0)
• Recommended reading
– Introduction to Computer Graphics, Foley, Van
Dam, et. al., pub. Addison-Wesley, 1994
– 3D Computer Graphics, A. Watt, pub.
Addison-Wesley, 1994

4. 1/2 - 4
Module Content
• Introduction to Computer Graphics
– Historical perspective
– Application areas
– Graphics standards
– Graphics software

5. 1/2 - 5
Module Content
• Introduction to Computer Graphics
• Hardware & Software Support
– Raster versus vector graphics
– Picture encoding techniques
– Display devices and hard copy

6. 1/2 - 6
Module Content
• Introduction to Computer Graphics
• Hardware & Software Support
• Clipping in 2 Dimensions
– Lines and polygons
– Windows and simple transformations
– Co-ordinate systems
– Reflections, shears and composition

7. 1/2 - 7
Module Content
• Introduction to Computer Graphics
• Hardware & Software Support
• Clipping in 2 Dimensions
• Scan Conversion
– Line drawing algorithms
– Circle generating algorithms
– Scan conversion of polygons
– Aliasing and anti-aliasing methods

8. Lectures One & Two
Introduction to Computer Graphics
& An Historical Perspective

9. 1/2 - 9
Application Areas: CAD
• Computer-Aided Design
– buildings, automobiles, aircraft, textiles,
computers, spacecraft, watercraft
– allows ‘what if’ investigation
– designs can be animated
– can be incorporated into virtual reality systems
– final appearance - shading, lighting, in-situ
– feed into computer-aided manufacture (CAM)

10. 1/2 - 10
Application Areas: Presentations
• Presentation graphics
– illustrations for reports
– summarise data
– production of 35mm slides and transparencies
– project management, e.g. time charts

11. 1/2 - 11
Application Areas: Art
• Computer Art
– paintbrush software
– modelling
– texture mapping
– mathematical art, e.g. fractals
– desktop publishing (DTP)
– logo design

12. 1/2 - 12
Application Areas:
Entertainment
• Motion pictures / music videos / TV shows
– graphics scenes by themselves
– graphics objects combined with actors
• Morphing
– transformation of one person / object into
another

13. 1/2 - 13
Application Areas: Education
• Education and Training
– Models of physical, financial and economic
systems
– Simulators

14. 1/2 - 14
Application Areas: Visualisation
• Aids analysis of large amounts of data
– colour coding, contour plots, surface rendering
– examples: airflow over a wing, minimal surface
functions
• Aids the study of the behaviour of certain
processes
– example: animation of the growth of a corn ear

15. 1/2 - 15
Related Disciplines
• Image Processing
– the application of techniques to modify or
interpret existing pictures
– computer graphics is the use of a computer to
create a picture
– both disciplines are often combined in many
applications, e.g. computer-aided surgery

16. 1/2 - 16
Related Disciplines
• Human-Computer Interaction
– graphical interfaces are now very common
– WIMP concept
• Window manager
• Icons to represent processing options
• Menus are textual descriptions of options
• Pointers, e.g. mouse, are used for selection

17. 1/2 - 17
An Historical Perspective
• Display of data on plotters and CRTs
– first simple pictures generated in 1950
(MIT’s Whirlwind I computer)
– slow progress over the 1950s (batch systems)
• Interactive computer graphics
– Sutherland’s Ph.D. thesis (1962) - Sketchpad
• Large research projects (The Golden Age)
– General Motors, Lockheed Aircraft, MIT

18. 1/2 - 18
An Historical Perspective
• Research bears fruit in the 1970s
– still a small, specialized field
– hardware expensive, software difficult to use
• The advent of the Personal Computer (’80s)
– built-in raster graphics displays
– mass-produced, less expensive
• The desktop concept

19. 1/2 - 19
Graphics Standards
• Aim: application-program portability
– isolate the programmer from the real devices
– also results in “Programmer portability”
• CORE Standard (1977 & 1979)
• Graphical Kernel System (1985) - GKS
• 3D-GKS (1988)
• Programmer’s Hierarchical Interactive
Graphics System (1988) - PHIGS