Course Abstract

ART 2907, ARCH 3702, CS 1620, ENGRI 1620
(Course fulfills MQR In/Out of College elective for Art majors)

We live in an electronic world, constantly connected digitally through the Internet. Increasingly more of our communication, education, and entertainment, from mobile phones to e-books to television and digital theater is pictorial. Where is this technology going, where did it come from, and what will be our future graphic environments?

This is an interdisciplinary course designed to introduce students in the creative arts, science and engineering to the concepts of digital pictorial representation, image capture and display. It is a concept and theory course, which concentrates on "why" rather than "how." Other titles for the course could be "How to Represent 3D Space with 2D Images?" or "How are Digital Pictures Acquired or Made?" or even "How Things Work?" Topics will include: perspective representations, color perception, display technology, how television works, bandwidth and printing concepts, digital photography, computer graphics modeling and rendering, user interfaces and touch panel displays, and 2D, 3D and stereo animation. The latter part of the course describes future technologies including digital photorealism, and photographic, laser and infra-red 3D geometry capture and virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The convergence of many segments of today's environment will be required to generate the perception of "presence" for VR and AR and will spawn many opportunities for future means of communication.

Demonstrations of the next generation of computer software/hardware and input and display devices will be shown. Historical precedents from the Renaissance architects, including the works of Brunelleschi, and Borromini, to artists such as Albers, Seurat, Monet and Magritte will illustrate how many of the modern computer methods of today were illustrated by architects and artists of the past.

There will be two lectures per week and one recitation section every other week. The lab sessions will be augmented by experiments and demonstrations at the state-of-the-art laboratory of the Program of Computer Graphics. There are no exams.

Professor Greenberg is the Director of the Program of Computer Graphics and teaches in the Departments of Art, Architecture and Computer Science. In addition to government funding, his research in this area is supported by Pixar, DreamWorks, Microsoft, Intel, Oculus, Valve and Autodesk.

Prerequisite: none

Milstein Auditorium

Tuesday/Thursday, 11:15 am - 12:05pm

Laboratory Sessions: To be announced