Comparing and evaluating computer graphics and visualization software

When starting a new computer graphics or visualization software project, students, researchers, and businesses alike must decide whether or not to start from scratch or with third‐party software. Since computer graphics and visualization applications are typically quite large, developers often build upon existing software libraries in order to take advantage of the tens of thousands of hours worth of development and testing already invested. Thus, developers and managers must face the decision of which library to build on. We present a side‐by‐side comparison and evaluation of four popular, state‐of‐the‐art visualization and computer graphics libraries, namely the Visualization Toolkit (VTK), Open Inventor, Coin3D, and Hoops 3D. The evaluation is based on the feature set, ease of installation, development of a benchmark application, documentation, and technical support for each package. The results of our comparison and evaluation are described and recommendations are given as for whom the libraries are best suited. The VTK prevails on top in many of the aspects we compared and evaluated. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of computer graphics and visualization in the GII

However captivating and encouraging its potential, the global information infrastructure (GII) has a long way to go before reaching full effectiveness. The GII must address real user needs and capabilities rather than developers' opinions on them. Otherwise, this information universe will become a cemetery, a massive burial site for an infinitely large amount of data and information. Visualization and computer graphics can play a central role in helping the GII meet its challenges. This report discusses how to use graphics and visualization technologies to do just that. We chose the topics for this report to represent some key challenges in interacting with structured and unstructured information distributed over the GII. The authors offer practical approaches to improving user interaction with the GII, especially the World Wide Web. Computer graphics and visualization provide effective tools for tackling the problems     

Are autostereograms useful for computer graphics and scientific visualization

Autostereograms are images that can be observed as “flat” 2D pictures or as a display of 3D objects without any extra apparatus. More than one million copies of books on this subject have been sold recently, but are autostereograms useful for computer graphics and scientific visualization? This short note provides some assistance for easily designing still and animated autostereograms, and tries to encourage reader involvement in finding new scientific applications.     

Enhancing visual thinking and learning with computer graphics and virtual environment design

Prior to language development, all proto-human had was his senses and a significantly evolving brain [Bolles (1991) A Second Way of Knowing, Prentice Hall, New York]. Since we understand now how critically important language is to thinking, how could proto-human “think” in the absence of language as we know it? One answer is that proto-human depended upon visual learning as a primordial form of cognition, what we call today, “a second way of learning” with verbal learning presumably serving as the first learning system. The modern age has permitted visual learning to take a back-seat to verbal learning, however the capabilities of emerging digital visual technologies may help us recapture and extend our visual thinking and learning capabilities. This paper attempts to scratch the surface with regard to the visual thinking and learning potential afforded by the recent evolution in some computer graphics technologies. A general discussion of the scope and definition of visual thinking and learning is integrated with examples of both current research strategies and current and proposed teaching strategies. Our main focus has been on applications within a visually based art curriculum although computer graphics spans several discipline areas and, in most cases, includes some form of cooperative environment and development. Hence, it is hoped that the information contained here may have some useful applications to curriculum design in other discipline areas such as computer science, communication, mathematics and physics, just to name a few.     

Standards in computer graphics

GKS, which recently became the International Standards Organization (ISO) standard for computer graphics programming, is the first of a set of interlocking graphics standards. This paper outlines the important ideas behind GKS, describes its relationship with other standards and discusses the benefits of standardization.     

Everyday computer graphics

If AR becomes universal, then we can use it for casual, small things that will make our daily lives a bit easier. One of the more logical uses for AR is communication. For example, as many authors have observed, it would be handy to leave notes for each other in cyberspace, yet attach them to physical objects or locations. I suggest some of the applications that I'd like to have available for personal or individual use on an everyday basis. They communicate to users without text. Instead, graphics do all the work.     

Coordinate-free computer graphics

This paper describes the graphical programming language tuna. tuna is a superset of fortran IV, designed for the writing of interactive graphics programs. The datatype graphical has been added to fortran along with operators which allow the writing of graphical expressions. These operators perform coordinate-free operations such as intersection, concatenation, rotation, and superposition. Other extensions include graphical Boolean operators and statements for communicating with an interactive terminal and light pen.Graphical entities are treated as primitive, rather than as sequences of Cartesian coordinate pairs. The construction operators in tuna are more closely related to the operations of the draftsman than to the algebraic operations of analytic geometry.Pictures are logical trees of points, lines, and subpictures; either DYNAMIC (changing as their subcomponents change) or STATIC. The data structure required to implement this is completely transparent to the programmer.     

Current trends in computer graphics

A look at the trends in computer graphics is given by analyzing important areas that affect the progress of graphics like hardware, input and output devices for graphics, programming languages, systems developments and advances in techniques and algorithms for computer graphics. Then attention is given to new and expanded application areas for the future, as well as some problems that will persistently confront people working in graphics.     

Crystal gazing in computer graphics

We, the people, are in the midst of the age of the computer. We are at the beginning of the age of computer graphics. This article will crystal gaze upon a few of the areas of life which are beginning to be and soon will be very affected by computer graphics. Topics vary from homes and cities; hardware and animation; Congress and business; and architecture and drafting to art. These show that the future uses of computer graphics are limited only by the imagination.

Underlying the whole gamut is the theme that computer graphics must be user oriented! The application user must not be required to know anything about computers or their languages or how to manipulate complex mathematics!     

Kinematics with computer graphics

The impact which computer graphics can have on engineering education is illustrated in this paper by considering the subject area of kinematics. Details of the mathematical modeling needed to support the generation of motion curves and computer graphics simulation for kinematic analysis are given, and a comparison is made with the current popular methods of analysis. Several results of computer graphic displays are given to illustrate the wide variety of situations where computer graphics can add to the teaching and understanding of kinematics.     

Interactive computer aided design using computer graphics

The development of a software system for general network design using interactive computer graphics poses many problems, which must be solved in a way consistent with the principles of man-machine communication as applied to network design, so as to obtain a system suited both to networks of any nature and also to any type of network design technique.This paper states the principles influencing the development of such a system and presents the design decisions made and the one implementation.     

Implementation of computer graphics exercises in freshman engineering graphics education

The rising application of computer-aided design (CAD) in the industrial environment has precipitated an interest in computer graphics for engineering education. At the University of Texas at Austin, a computer graphics laboratory has been established that is primarily dedicated to freshman engineering graphics education. The laboratory is currently equipped with eight Hewlett-Packard 2647 A intelligent graphics terminals. Five software modules have been developed to introduce the student to the graphics terminal and to demonstrate its capabilities for making engineering drawings. The modules permit the construction of line drawings, pictorials, graphs and charts on the CRT terminal without requiring any programming skill on the part of the student. The laboratory exercises have been successfully used by over 1000 engineering graphics students during the first two semesters of implementation. This paper describes the efforts to date in organizing and implementing this freshman computer graphics laboratory.     

Using color effectively in computer graphics

In computer graphics, judicious use of colors helps to get the message across. Using several tasks that engage the user in different ways as examples, this tutorial outlines principles for using color effectively in computer graphics. These principles offer a starting point for color choices in the context of user-centered designs. The tutorial provides color selection guidelines based on biological, psychological and technological considerations. Each section ends with a few general guidelines for color selection, summarizing the main points discussed. Prototyping and usability assessment will help you refine and verify your own color choices for each application     

Color-defective vision and computer graphics displays

A color space defined by the fundamental spectral sensitivity functions of the human visual system is used to assist in the design of computer graphics displays for color-deficient users. The functions are derived in terms of the CIE standard observer color-matching functions. The Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue test, a widely used color vision test administered using physical color samples, is then implemented on a digitally controlled color television monitor. The flexibility of this computer graphics medium is then used to extend the Farnsworth-Munsell test in a way that improves the specificity of the diagnoses rendered by the test. The issue of how the world appears to color-deficient observers is addressed, and a full-color image is modified to represent a color-defective view of the scene. Specific guidelines are offered for the design of computer graphics displays that will accommodate almost all color-deficient users     

Chemical ideograms and molecular computer graphics

Molecular computer graphics (MCG) has become the indispensable complement of experimental chemical and biological tools and, in a way, will shape the evolution of these fields. This accelerated and popularized evolution takes root in the visual, even scenic, grasping of fundamental chemical concepts, perceived as veritable ideograms, which condense a vast amount of information with a few two- or threedimensional graphic symbols. With MCG one can carry out real computerized syntheses of chemical images. MCG is also an ideal tool through which to visualize the changes of a system as a function of time. This review article describes the potentials and advantages of structural MCG for visualizing the basic steps of important modelization concepts, particularly for handling on-line structures in information networks and in computer-assisted drug design (CADD) applications.     

Reconstructing history with computer graphics

Some applications of computer graphics to archeology are described. One project involved making a solid model of part of the Roman temple excavated at Bath, England, and its surroundings, comprising the Temple of Sulis Minerva, its precinct with surrounding colonnade, the Facade of the Four Seasons, and the barrel-roofed bathhouse that formerly enclosed what is now called the King's Bath. This model was constructed using a newly developed ray caster called DORA (divided object-space ray-casting algorithm). A second model was done of the Roman Fortress Baths in Caerleon, Wales. A quantity of archaeological graphics, both reconstructions and displays of data such as resistivity results, were also produced