The creation and modification of imagery must be done with care, otherwise the content and context of the information may be misconstrued or lost. In addition to data-reduction and sampling errors introduced by some image manipulations, modification of imagery may not preserve the semantic content or important large scale features of an image. For example, consider converting an image from color to grayscale, shown in Figure~\ref{fig:color2GreySol}. Default grayscale conversion algorithms remove the visible boundaries between isoluminant colors. A solution to this problem should incorporate the perceived boundaries in the color image into the grayscale image.
Vision scientists hypothesize that the human visual system does not perceive absolute values, and base percepts such as chrominance and luminance perception upon relative assessments, in part due to the center-surround organization of cells in the early stages of visual processing~\cite{LottoPurves}. Given the importance of difference-preserving mappings, my research explores mappings that preserve the semantic information contained in imagery even if image values, such as color and intensity, are not strictly preserved.
This leads to several interesting research questions: instead of manipulating digital images as independent pixel values, can images be manipulated in a way that preserves perceived changes, and what does this type of image manipulation do to the semantic information in the image?
Our ability to convey complex meaning and emotion by the clever arrangement of symbols and signs is one of the most celebrated aspects of our human heritage. If Aesthetics is defined as the interaction between symbol and observer within a social context, then Computational Aesthetics is the empirically based field that examines applications of Aesthetics. Computational Aesthetics investigates the creation of tools that can enhance the expressive power of the fine and applied arts and furthers our understanding of aesthetic evaluation, perception, and meaning.
Dr. Bruce Gooch, Dr. Amy Gooch and Dr. Brian Wyvill are founders of the area of Computational Aesthetics research. Bruce was an organizer of the first ever Eurographics sponsored conference in the area (Girona Spain 2005), a Dagstuhl seminar (Germany 2006), the second conference at the Banff Centre (Canada 2007), and the third Eurographics sponsored conference (Lisbon Portugal 2008). Dr. Bruce Gooch and Dr. Brian Wyvill also served as guest editors of the IEEE journal Computer Graphics and Applications special issue on Computational Aesthetics in 2007. The forth Eurographics sponsored conference on Computational Aesthetics will be held in Victoria Canada in 2009, organized by Dr. Wyvill.
In the computer graphics community, rendering is the process by which data is converted into images. Photorealistic rendering denotes images based on physical simulations. The goal of photorealistic rendering is to create images indistinguishable from photographs of real world scenes. In contrast, non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) is concerned with images that are guided by artistic processes. The reasons for using NPR range from aesthetic and stylistic considerations to communicative advantages such as abstraction and symbolism.
In their extensive body of non-photorealistic rendering work, Dr. Bruce Gooch and Dr. Amy Gooch have explored a variety of computer based methods for producing illustrations including: optimization for scene layout [6], using silhouette and boundary edges to enhance form [7, 8, 16], as well as stippling, paint-strokes, and textures to indicate material properties [9, 32]. Dr. Bruce Gooch has also done work in creating digital oil paintings [5, 15].
In computer graphics the way that light interacts with objects is abstracted mathematically into a shading model. There are four local shading models in computer graphics, each named for the investigator who discovered it; Phong, Gouraud, Blinn and Gooch [1]. The Gooch shading model, discovered by Dr. Amy Gooch and Dr. Bruce Gooch, is widely used in academia for scientific visualization [33], as well and in movies and video games. Dr. Amy Gooch and Dr. Bruce Gooch has made contributions in color based image processing to enhance the appearance of digital images. Dr. Bruce Gooch has done work in color transfer between images [24] and they both collabroated on converting color images to grayscale in way that maintains color differences [4].
Dr. Bruce Gooch and Dr. Amy Gooch are the author of two books on NPR: Non-Photorealistic Rendering, Bruce Gooch and Amy Gooch published by A.K. Peters 2001; and Illustrative Visualization, Bruce Gooch, Amy Gooch and Mario Costa Sosa to be published by A.K. Peters in 2009.
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Learning is an active, personal experience that allows the student to reflect on what they know (e.g. beliefs, ideas, misconceptions, etc.) and how this knowledge shapes their understanding of the world and sense of self. Game-based learning refers to embedded instructional content in video games. Game-informed practices give students an opportunity to learn concepts in a situated manner. For example, students who play video sports games (i.e. football) learn about the rules of the game and the social practices (e.g. huddle to discuss strategy) associated with the game. Using a subset of game informed practices, Dr. Gooch has been studying the effect of the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Ever Quest 2 for second language acquisition [17, 19, 21, 22]. Dr. Gooch has also made contributions in computer science education using video games for affective learning in first year computer science courses [18, 20, 23].
Professor Bruce Gooch is recognized as a leader in the study of video games and learning by his peers in academia. He was the general chair of the ACM conference Interactive Three Dimensional Graphics and Games (I3D) in 2007 and Papers Co-Chair in 2008. Of the over 1200 journals and conferences in computer science I3D has been ranked by Cite-Seer as number 25 based on the impact of the conference papers. Dr. Bruce Gooch has also been on the program committee for the Foundations of Digital Games conference for 3 years and is currently serving as the publicity chair.
Dr. Bruce Gooch has also been recognized by industry as an innovator. He has received $160,000 in two research awards for the study of video games and learning from Microsoft Research. Last year he was invited to demonstrate his game technology at Microsoft Research TechFest. Microsoft Research TechFest is currently know as the top computer technology demonstration in the world. Dr. Bruce Gooch is one of only three academics invited to demonstrate at TechFest 2008, the other participants were Brown and Columbia Universities.
Dr. Melanie Tory's research is in the areas of human-computer interaction, visualization, and computer-supported cooperative work. Dr. Tory designs and evaluates visualization and interaction techniques that allow people to effectively analyze data and make decisions. Dr. Tory's research applies to a wide variety of areas, including the sciences, medicine, and engineering. She is am particularly interested in designing visualization techniques based on human perceptual capabilities, as well as designing for multiple co-located users (collaborative visualization).
CGI 2009
Internation Symposium on Computational Asthetics in Graphics, Visualation and Imaging
SIGGRAPH 2009