Computer science disciplines dealing with images and 3D models
Visual computing is a generic term for all computer science disciplines dealing with images and 3D models, such as computer graphics, image processing, visualization, computer vision, virtual and augmented reality and video processing. Visual computing also includes aspects of pattern recognition, human computer interaction, machine learning and digital libraries. The core challenges are the acquisition, processing, analysis and rendering of visual information (mainly images and video). Application areas include industrial quality control, medical image processing and visualization, surveying, robotics, multimedia systems, virtual heritage, special effects in movies and television, and computer games.
Visual computing[1] is a fairly new term, which got its current meaning around 2005, when the International Symposium on Visual Computing first convened.[2] Areas of computer technology concerning images, such as image formats, filtering methods, color models, and image metrics, have in common many mathematical methods and algorithms. When computer scientists working in computer science disciplines that involve images, such as computer graphics, image processing, and computer vision, noticed that their methods and applications increasingly overlapped, they began using the term "visual computing" to describe these fields collectively. And also the programming methods on graphics hardware, the manipulation tricks to handle huge data, textbooks and conferences, the scientific communities of these disciplines and working groups at companies intermixed more and more.
Furthermore, applications increasingly needed techniques from more than one of these fields concurrently. To generate very detailed models of complex objects you need image recognition, 3D sensors and reconstruction algorithms, and to display these models believably you need realistic rendering techniques with complex lighting simulation. Real-time graphics is the basis for usable virtual and augmented reality software. A good segmentation of the organs is the basis for interactive manipulation of 3D visualizations of medical scans. Robot control needs the recognition of objects just as a model of its environment. And all devices (computers) need ergonomic graphical user interfaces.
Although many problems are considered solved within the scientific communities of the sub-disciplines making up visual computing (mostly under idealistic assumptions), one major challenge of visual computing as a whole is the integration of these partial solutions into applicable products. This includes dealing with many practical problems like addressing a multitude of hardware, the use of real data (that is often erroneous and/or gigantic in size), and the operation by untrained users. In this respect, Visual computing is more than just the sum of its sub-disciplines, it is the next step towards systems fit for real use in all areas using images or 3D objects on the computer.
Visual computing disciplines
At least the following disciplines are sub-fields of visual computing. More detailed descriptions of each of these fields can be found on the linked special pages.
Computer graphics and computer animation
Computer graphics is a general term for all techniques that produce images as result with the help of a computer. To transform the description of objects to nice images is called rendering which is always a compromise between image quality and run-time.
Image analysis and computer vision
Techniques that can extract content information from images are called image analysis techniques. Computer vision is the ability of computers (or of robots) to recognize their environment and to interpret it correctly.
Visualization and visual analytics
Visualization is used to produce images that shall communicate messages. Data may be abstract or concrete, often with no a priori geometrical components. Visual analytics describes the discipline of interactive visual analysis of data, also described as “the science of analytical reasoning supported by the interactive visual interface”.[3]
Geometric modeling and 3D-printing
To represent objects for rendering it needs special methods and data structures, which subsumed with the term geometric modeling. In addition to describing and interactive geometric techniques, sensor data are more and more used to reconstruct geometrical models. Algorithms for the efficient control of 3D printers also belong to the field of visual computing.
Image processing and image editing
In contrast to image analysis image processing manipulates images to produce better images. “Better” can have very different meanings subject to the respective application. Also, it has to be discriminated from image editing which describes interactive manipulation (or automated through computer algorithms) of images based on human validation.
Virtual and augmented reality
Techniques that produce the feeling of immersion into a fictive world are called virtual reality (VR). Requirements for VR include head-mounted displays, real-time tracking, and high-quality real-time rendering. Augmented reality enables the user to see the real environment in addition to the virtual objects, which augment this reality. Accuracy requirements on rendering speed and tracking precision are significantly higher here.
Human computer interaction
The planning, design and uses of interfaces between people and computers is not only part of every system involving images. Due to the high bandwidth of the human visual channel (eye), images are also a preferred part of ergonomic user interfaces in any system, so that human-computer interaction is also an integral part of visual computing.
Footnotes
↑ Frank Nielsen (2005). Visual computing: Geometry, graphics, and vision. Charles River Media. ISBN978-1584504276.
↑ [Thomas, J.J., and Cook, K.A. (Eds) (2005). An Illuminated Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics, IEEE Computer Society Press, ISBN0-7695-2323-4]
Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined in a scene file containing objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. The scene file contains geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information describing the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a digital image or raster graphics image file. The term "rendering" is analogous to the concept of an artist's impression of a scene. The term "rendering" is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing program to produce the final video output.
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be defined as a system that incorporates three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive, or destructive. This experience is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment. In this way, augmented reality alters one's ongoing perception of a real-world environment, whereas virtual reality completely replaces the user's real-world environment with a simulated one.
Scientific visualization is an interdisciplinary branch of science concerned with the visualization of scientific phenomena. It is also considered a subset of computer graphics, a branch of computer science. The purpose of scientific visualization is to graphically illustrate scientific data to enable scientists to understand, illustrate, and glean insight from their data. Research into how people read and misread various types of visualizations is helping to determine what types and features of visualizations are most understandable and effective in conveying information.
Visualization or visualisation is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas since the dawn of humanity. from history include cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek geometry, and Leonardo da Vinci's revolutionary methods of technical drawing for engineering and scientific purposes.
In scientific visualization and computer graphics, volume rendering is a set of techniques used to display a 2D projection of a 3D discretely sampled data set, typically a 3D scalar field.
The Simulated Fluorescence Process (SFP) is a computing algorithm used for scientific visualization of 3D data from, for example, fluorescence microscopes. By modeling a physical light/matter interaction process, an image can be computed which shows the data as it would have appeared in reality when viewed under these conditions.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computer vision:
3D computer graphics, sometimes called CGI, 3-D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering digital images, usually 2D images but sometimes 3D images. The resulting images may be stored for viewing later or displayed in real time.
A projection augmented model is an element sometimes employed in virtual reality systems. It consists of a physical three-dimensional model onto which a computer image is projected to create a realistic looking object. Importantly, the physical model is the same geometric shape as the object that the PA model depicts.
In computer vision and computer graphics, 3D reconstruction is the process of capturing the shape and appearance of real objects. This process can be accomplished either by active or passive methods. If the model is allowed to change its shape in time, this is referred to as non-rigid or spatio-temporal reconstruction.
GraphiCon is the largest International conference on computer graphics and computer vision in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
A 3D city model is digital model of urban areas that represent terrain surfaces, sites, buildings, vegetation, infrastructure and landscape elements in three-dimensional scale as well as related objects belonging to urban areas. Their components are described and represented by corresponding two- and three-dimensional spatial data and geo-referenced data. 3D city models support presentation, exploration, analysis, and management tasks in a large number of different application domains. In particular, 3D city models allow "for visually integrating heterogeneous geoinformation within a single framework and, therefore, create and manage complex urban information spaces."
Lawrence Jay Rosenblum is an American mathematician, and Program Director for Graphics and Visualization at the National Science Foundation.
Computer graphics is a sub-field of computer science which studies methods for digitally synthesizing and manipulating visual content. Although the term often refers to the study of three-dimensional computer graphics, it also encompasses two-dimensional graphics and image processing.
Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great deal of specialized hardware and software has been developed, with the displays of most devices being driven by computer graphics hardware. It is a vast and recently developed area of computer science. The phrase was coined in 1960 by computer graphics researchers Verne Hudson and William Fetter of Boeing. It is often abbreviated as CG, or typically in the context of film as computer generated imagery (CGI). The non-artistic aspects of computer graphics are the subject of computer science research.
Cultural analytics refers to the use of computational, visualization, and big data methods for the exploration of contemporary and historical cultures. While digital humanities research has focused on text data, cultural analytics has a particular focus on massive cultural data sets of visual material – both digitized visual artifacts and contemporary visual and interactive media. Taking on the challenge of how to best explore large collections of rich cultural content, cultural analytics researchers developed new methods and intuitive visual techniques that rely on high-resolution visualization and digital image processing. These methods are used to address both the existing research questions in humanities, to explore new questions, and to develop new theoretical concepts that fit the mega-scale of digital culture in the early 21st century.
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a specific-technology or application of computer graphics for creating or improving images in art, printed media, simulators, videos and video games. These images are either static or dynamic. CGI both refers to 2D computer graphics and 3D computer graphics with the purpose of designing characters, virtual worlds, or scenes and special effects. The application of CGI for creating/improving animations is called computer animation, or CGI animation.
This is a glossary of terms relating to computer graphics.
Visual Cloud is the implementation of visual computing applications that rely on cloud computing architectures, cloud scale processing and storage, and ubiquitous broadband connectivity between connected devices, network edge devices and cloud data centers. It is a model for providing visual computing services to consumers and business users, while allowing service providers to realize the general benefits of cloud computing, such as low cost, elastic scalability, and high availability while providing optimized infrastructure for visual computing application requirements.
Amitabh Varshney is an Indian-born American computer scientist. He is an IEEE fellow, and serves as Dean of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. Before being named Dean, Varshney was the director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) from 2010 to 2018.
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