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Computers in Art, Design and Animation John Lansdown Rae A Computers in Art, Design and Animation John Lansdown Rae A. Earnshaw Editors Computers in Art, Design and Animation With 218 Illustrations, 68 in Full Color Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg London Paris Tokyo John Lansdown Rae A. Earnshaw 50-51 Russell Square University of Leeds London we1 B 4JP Leeds LS2 9JT United Kingdom United Kingdom On the Front Cover: Computer Sculpture by William Latham, Sculptor Software by Mike King, Ray Tracing Software by Amazing Array, Ltd., London, United Kingdom. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Computers in art, design and animation / John Lansdown, Rae A. Earnshaw, editors. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-8868-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-4538-4 001: 10.1007/978-1-4612-4538-4 1. Computer art. 2. Computer-aided design. 3. Computer graphics. I. Lansdown, John. II. Earnshaw, Rae A. N7433.8.C67 1989 760--dc19 88-38983 © 1989 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc. in this publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone. 9 8 765 432 1 Preface The collection of papers that makes up this book arises largely from the joint activities of two specialist groups of the British Computer Society, namely the Displays Group and the Computer Arts Society. Both these groups are now more than 20 years old and during the whole of this time have held regular, separate meetings. In recent years, however, the two groups have held a joint annual meeting at which presentations of mutual interest have been given and it is mainly from the last two of these that the present papers have been drawn. They fall naturally into four classes: visualisation, art, design and animation-although, as in all such cases, the boundaries between the classes are fuzzy and overlap inevitably occurs. Visualisation The graphic potential of computers has been recognised almost since computing was first used, but it is only comparatively recently that their possibilities as devices for the visualisation of complex. and largely ab­ stract phenomena has begun to be more fully appreciated. Some workers stress the need to be able to model photographic reality in order to assist in this task. They look to better algorithms and more resolution to achieve this end. Others-Alan Mackay for instance-suggest that it is "not just a matter of providing more and more pixels. It is a matter of providing congenial clues which employ to the greatest extent what we already know." The three papers in this section perceptively examine some of the theoretical questions that arise in the use of computers and visualisation. Computer Art Alan Turing (1912-1954) looked forward to the day when computers could do such creative and imaginative things as write poetry and paint pictures. Even in the 1940s and early 1950s-when computers had very VI Preface restricted capabilities indeed-he foresaw them being used for creative tasks which, even today, we regard as quintessentially human. Although still not able to fully realise Turing's dream, computing has intrigued artists for nearly 40 years. Nowadays many artists use computers to help them in their work and it is no longer remarkable that they should do so. However, most artists who are concerned with the use of the machine use it to realise ideas which they have devised without computer aid: computing in this case is used as a tool of production or, perhaps, as a medium. This is by far the most popular and time-honoured role for computing in the arts. Some artists-a small few-are interested in using the computer as an intelligent apprentice where the computer acts more independently. Always, though, I think we will find that every artist who uses computing sees it as a catalyst to new, more exciting and innovative work. The ultimate pos­ sibilities, however, are only just being dimly seen. Richard Wright tells us that "painters and sculptors rarely need to justify their choice of media," yet we think this choice sometimes needs explanation. The role that computers can play in the visual arts is often misunderstood or, perhaps, understood too narrowly. Part of the aim of this collection is to broaden the understanding and to illustrate the wide range of assistance the computer can give to the artist. Design The papers in this section look at both the theoretical and practical issues of using computers in the difficult process of designing artefacts. Philip Steadman encapsulates the problems of assisting the computer-aided de­ sign process (in contrast to the computer-aided drafting process) thus: "the designer works with ill-formed, tentative, ambiguous and vague ideas; this ambiguity and imprecision are carried over into the representations which the designer uses, his sketches and doodles; and these are qualities which it is notoriously difficult to embody in computer programs." Despite these problems, assistance can be given to designers and some of our papers outline the ways in which this might be and is being done. A note of caution is sounded by Gillian Crampton Smith, however. She gives us the views of a practising graphic designer with considerable ex­ perience of computing and complains of the shortfall between the dream and the reality: "Too costly, too complex, too cryptic," she says of the available help and adds, "It is also too damn ugly." Animation Much of the thrust towards faster, more powerful and more photorealistic graphics computing comes from the needs of the entertainment industry: film and television. Nowadays many of the special effects in these media Preface vii are achieved not by model-shooting or conventional means but by com­ puter animation, and huge sums of money have been invested in this process. But the techniques that have been derived have more practical purposes too. The first of the papers in this section deals with one of these: the needs and methods of pilot training. John Vince, one of the pioneers of British computer animation, outlines the problems of pro­ ducing, for flight simulators, high-quality imagery in real time, that is, more than a million times faster than that achieved by many conventional rendering systems. (Surprisingly-or perhaps not so surprisingly to those who have experienced a "flight" in one of these magical simulators-these are now being sold to the entertainment industry for installation in theme and amusement parks.) At the other end of the scale of cost and speed, we have the provisions for students learning the art of computer animation, and two authors who have been engaged in teaching this subject outline their personal view of the problems. The difficult-indeed, still largely unsolved-task of modelling movement of the human body to assist in recording and animating an Indian dance form is examined, as is the modelling and animation of the human face. Something that can possibly help in this direction as well as in many others-the modelling of soft, malleable objects-is also covered here. All the papers in all the sections illustrate something of the broad range of techniques, theory and methods for realising creative ends through computer graphics of varying levels of technological sophistication. Whether your concerns are mainly in computing, in graphics, in art or in design, we are sure that you will find much to interest you in this collection. John Lansdown Rae A. Earnshaw Contents Preface v Contributors Xl Part 1 Visualisation Alan L. Mackay In the Mind's Eye 3 Paul Brown Realism and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 12 George L. Mallen The Visualisation of Structural Complexity: Some Thoughts on the 21 st Anniversary of the Displays Group 21 Part 2 Art Richard Wright Computer Graphics-Can Science. Help Make Art? 29 Mike King Towards an Integrated Computer Art System 41 John Lansdown Generative Techniques in Graphical Computer Art: Some Possibilities and Practices 56 William Latham Form Synth: The Rule-based Evolution of Complex Forms from Geometric Primitives 80 Barry Martin Graphic Potential of Recursive Functions 109 David R.K. Brownrigg Tessellation and Image Generation by and Electronic Kaleidoscope and Colour Christine I. Brownrigg Table Modification of Video Input 130 x Contents Ian 0. Angell and Oct-Tree Encoding and Fractal Cathy Sobhanpanah Rendering of Polyhedra 140 Part 3 Design Philip Steadman Computer Assistance to the Design Process 153 John Lansdown ~ Theory of Computer-Aided Design: A Possible Approach 163 William Fawcett Linking Graphics and Inference 173 Avon Huxor and Superquadric-based Symbolic Graphics lain Elliot for Design 183 James Hennessey Designer's Toolkit 195 Peter P. Comninos Computer Graphics and Animation for Interior and Industrial Designers 216 Gillian Crampton Computer Graphics and Graphic Smith Design: Too Costly, Too Complex, Too Cryptic 225 Part 4 Animation John A. Vince The Art of Simulation 235 Alexander King and Computer Animation: A Personal Mike Stapleton View 246 Keith Waters Towards Autonomous Control for Three-dimensional Facial Animation 253 Sumant Narayan A Stylised Model for Animating Pattanaik Bharata Nateyam: An Indian Classical Dance Form 264 Tom W Maver Visual Modelling in Architectural Design 274 Brian Wyvill and Using Soft Objects in Computer- Geoff Wyvill Generated Character Animation 283 Index 299 Contributors Ian 0.
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