Online Computer Science Degree Guide: Graphics Resources

In the mid-1940s, plans were laid by the U.S. Navy to have MIT build a room-sized computer that could display a few radar blips on a tiny, circular screen, according to Wayne Carlson’s history of computer graphics at Ohio State University. Little did the researchers at the time know that these first computerized images would, in the coming decades, revolutionize film, television, art, and education, and give birth to completely new industries, video games not the least among them. Today, computer graphics are so much a part our daily experience that we have come to regard them as commonplace.

The following sections briefly survey some of the software used in media best known for digital effects, the organizations responsible for the exchange of ideas in this exciting field, and the research that started it all 60 years ago. The page ends with a list of carefully selected websites with additional information about the technology that has revolutionized the entertainment and simulation industries. The resources hyperlinked throughout the text below will be most appropriate for researchers who need up-to-date information about where computer imaging is headed as a field, and students who might be interested in pursuing a career that makes use of computer graphics.

Tools of the Trade

Although graphic design and computer graphics were once the domain of developers with enormous budgets, such as Industrial Light and Magic, the proliferation of personal computers has given hobbyists access to many of the same tools used by professionals. Adobe, for example, has developed a reputation for bringing computers graphics development into the home ever since the release of Photoshop in the late 1980s. The magazine, Computer Graphics World, provides a review of Adobe’s most recent release of Creative Suite. Autodesk Maya is a popular choice for the computer graphics seen in high-profile movies (Shrek), TV shows (Shilo), and video games (Resistance 2), while Pixar’s RenderMan, sometimes used alongside Maya, is responsible for creating the digital effects in not only its own films, but in Titanic, The Lord of the Rings, and other movies.

Research

According to Ohio State University’s Critical History of Computer Graphics and Animation, the first computer graphics were developed at MIT in the early 1950s with the new Whirlwind computer, which was capable of displaying the positions of simulated aircraft, each accompanied by text information, on a small vector display. This system was later adapted by the U.S. Air Force as the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment simulation. Vector graphics, which are comprised of narrow lines, were the norm for much of the graphics technology of the 1950s and 1960s, according to another History of Computer Graphics. The alternative, raster images, uses tiny squares (pixels) to render images on a screen, and this technique is far more common today.

Graphics found their first use in video games in 1961, when MIT students Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne Wiitanen developed Spacewar! on the PDP-1 system. Contrary to popular opinion, Pong from the early 1970s was not the first video game, although it was the first to be popularly disseminated. Finally, 3D animation, soon to become a staple in big budget Hollywood films, was pioneered at the University of Utah in the early 1970s. 3D computer animation was used occasionally in movies in the 1970s, but not extensively until the production of Tron in 1982. Finally, Toy Story (described here in an article from Wired), the first feature film to be made completely with 3D computer graphics, was released in 1995.

Today, the University of Utah and MIT are still at the center of computer graphics research, as are Stanford, Berkeley, and Cornell, all of which provide extensive information about their research projects in achieving photo-realistic textures, animating digital faces, creating mesh-based objects, and so on. As for companies, a list of Microsoft’s projects on computer graphics can be found on their website, while Pixar Research Group’s Online Library describes each of its projects in detail. Finally, updates about computer graphics can be read in R&D Magazine’s Imaging Technology section.

Organizations

The first stop in any research into computer graphics is the Association for Computing Machinery’s sub-organization, Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, or SIGGRAPH. The association is well-known for its annual symposia and other meetings, and for hosting the online “journal,” Video Review, which is a compilation of notable 3D animations from movies, TV shows, video games, and other media. Other organizations include the European Association for Computer Graphics, or Eurographics, which similarly holds conferences and maintains publications (compiled in a Digital Library), and the Computer Graphics Society, which provides essential information for students and researchers via its workshops, wiki, and forums.

Additional Resources

• Computer Graphics Quarterly, with articles compiled online from 1997 onward, is one of SIGGRAPH’s scholarly journals. The issues are freely available, and include columns and articles from guest contributors.
• Computer Graphics World is a magazine that keeps its readers up to date on news and features, especially when it comes to movie technology. The website also includes reviews of graphics hardware and software.
• Both A Critical History of Computer Graphics and Animation, from Ohio State University, and History of Computer Graphics, from Passagen, take slightly different approaches to introducing the evolution of the same topic. Both are chronological, but the former also uses topical organization (CG in the movies, flight simulation, etc.) while the latter covers computer graphics decade by decade, and does not delve into the same level of detail.
• Industrial Light and Magic is responsible for the computer imagery in some of the most high-profile special effects in Hollywood, including the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises.
• The National Association of Photoshop Professionals, which releases the Photoshop User Magazine and holds the Photoshop World Conference, also provides tutorials on the product. The organization serves photographers, artists, graphic designers, and many others.

Image is by Althepal, and retrieved via Wikimedia Commons.