Once and Future Graphics Pioneers. Assignment #4

From lectures:

"Rendering 3D Worlds-3D Geometric Graphics II" by Anne Spalter, Addison Wesley Longman Inc. 1999,pp 257-293

" Once and Future Graphics Pioneer", B.J Novitski . http://www.architectureweek.com/2000/0913/tools 1-1.html

"Once and Future Graphics Pioneer Part II", B.J Novitski . http://www.architectureweek.com/2000/0920/tools 1-1.html

As a reader, these three lectures provided new information to me. Once and Future Graphics Pioneer gives detailed information about the photorealistic quality that architects are able to give to their renderings of proposed buildings and projects.

This lecture makes special emphasis on one of the most notable labs dedicated to the field of Program of Computer Graphics (PCG) that takes place at Cornell University in the city of Ithaca, NY. From 1974, this program has been guided by its director Donald P. Greenberg, this lab has been developing algorithms for photorealistic rendering by simulating the behavior of light and understanding the human visual perception system, bringing the latest technologies for design education. Some of the most outstanding developments performed at Cornell’s PCG was the creation of Lightscape, which is a rendering program able to create realistic lighting effects.

 

At the same time, Thanks to Greenberg’s initiative to create software able to display results graphically, the PCG turned into a multidisciplinary program; Artist, psychologist and engineers have joined this program in order to seek a rich research environment that values human perception, the aesthetics of light , physics  and precision computation.

 

The researches that take place in the PCG are focus on: improving the users interfaces for architectural application in a way that can be more appropriate for designers; Develop methods for improving image capture and the quality of image-based rendering; and to develop conceptual design tools to enable architects to design in context and enabling collaboration over the Internet.

 

Examples of these developments can be seen with the creation of a system that works with a drawing board sized, which functions as both sketch pad and display device. This equipment consists on a transparent digitalizing surface, cordless pen and a high resolution, rear-projector display driven by a powerful microprocessor.

D.Greenberg and professor Moreno Piccolotto have developed this system in order to create a new way for designers to express their project ideas. This system enables two or more designers to work on the same sketch collaboratively on the Internet.

This particular machine can lead the design field to a huge progress since architect and designer can be able to express their ideas regardless their locations in an effective and accurate way.

 

Another PCG’s research area is studying the behavior of light at the wavelength level, where no other architectural research lab in the world is exploring the light at this level of precision.

 

The second part of this lecture explains another research made by the PCG at Cornell University that consists on “image-based” techniques. This technique means that a digital photograph of an object can be “texture –mapped” which is a method for adding detail, surface texture, or color to a computer-generated graphics or 3D model.

 This lecture makes special honors to Cornell University students who have been pioneers on developing theoretical basis for many of the practical applications that architects now use routinely. Four of these students have created Wavefront software that is sold by Silicon Graphics subsidiary Alias/Wavefront.

 

Personally, I was aware of the existence of the software mentioned in these lectures, but some detailed information was new to me like for example the ITI VisionMaker PS digital drafting table. I believe that this is a great invention, as an architect, this can be a great tool to develop our sketches and ideas and discuss them online with some other colleagues; also, it allows us the opportunity to sketch but at the same time we are able to rotate and navigate in three dimensions.

I can see these software developments as great inventions and very productive for the interior design field since we can represent our 3D digital models in a photorealistic manner. Having realistic lighting effects and textures’ surfaces, architects and designers can show their interior spaces and ideas in an accurate and more realistic manner that can definitely help and improve our ways of representation in the architectural field.