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2013 | Buch

Introduction Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

The History of Visual Magic in Computers

How Beautiful Images are Made in CAD, 3D, VR and AR

verfasst von: Jon Peddie

Verlag: Springer London

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

If you have ever looked at a fantastic adventure or science fiction movie, or an amazingly complex and rich computer game, or a TV commercial where cars or gas pumps or biscuits behaved liked people and wondered, “How do they do that?”, then you’ve experienced the magic of 3D worlds generated by a computer.

3D in computers began as a way to represent automotive designs and illustrate the construction of molecules. 3D graphics use evolved to visualizations of simulated data and artistic representations of imaginary worlds.

In order to overcome the processing limitations of the computer, graphics had to exploit the characteristics of the eye and brain, and develop visual tricks to simulate realism. The goal is to create graphics images that will overcome the visual cues that cause disbelief and tell the viewer this is not real.

Thousands of people over thousands of years have developed the building blocks and made the discoveries in mathematics and science to make such 3D magic possible, and The History of Visual Magic in Computers is dedicated to all of them and tells a little of their story.

It traces the earliest understanding of 3D and then foundational mathematics to explain and construct 3D; from mechanical computers up to today’s tablets. Several of the amazing computer graphics algorithms and tricks came of periods where eruptions of new ideas and techniques seem to occur all at once. Applications emerged as the fundamentals of how to draw lines and create realistic images were better understood, leading to hardware 3D controllers that drive the display all the way to stereovision and virtual reality.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
1. Introduction
Abstract
Figure 1.1 shows the basic construction of a 3D graphics computer. That is also the general organization of this book, with each block more or less representing a chapter (there is no chapter on memory, but memory is discussed in multiple chapters).
The book traces the earliest understanding of 3D and then the foundational mathematics to explain and construct 3D. From there we follow the history of the computer, beginning with mechanical computers, and ending up with tablets. Next, we present the amazing computer graphics (CG) algorithms and tricks, and it’s difficult to tell the story because there were a couple of periods where eruptions of new ideas and techniques seem to occur all at once. With the fundamentals of how to draw lines and create realistic images better understood, the applications that exploited those foundations. The applications of course can’t do the work by themselves and so the following chapter is on the 3D controllers that drive the display. The chapter that logically follows that is on the development of the displays, and a chapter follows that on stereovision.
Jon Peddie
2. Getting to 3D
Abstract
Getting to 3D has required several steps, which were not a logical process done with an end goal in mind. Rather it was the natural outcome of one discovery leading to another, but driven by intellectual curiosity, genius, and occasionally chance discovery. When tracing the history of anything there has to be time and basic distance measurement. From that, we trace the development of basic geometry, and find that the triangle is foundation of all computer graphics. Even before triangles, we had to be able to count, and the first numbering systems date back to 5000 BCE. A system of numbers requires rules, rules that will support predictability and repeatability. In India, Panini established the Sanskrit grammar, and the grammar known as Ashtadhyayi, which was beginning of linguistics. That was necessary so we could share our counting and designs with other people. Thales of Miletos brought the science of geometry from Egypt to Greece, three centuries before Euclid. Pythagoras known for the Pythagorean Theorem used those concepts. After Thales introduced deductive reasoning in the 300s BCE, Euclid organized the teachings of Pythagoras into his own great work, The Elements. Then we had to learn how to use zero, and from there negative numbers, on to matrix math and transformations. It took close to 6,000 years to get to the point where we understood 2D geometry. The next step was to extend it to 3D. That wasn’t as easy as it sounds and Heron of Alexandria, mastered it in Egypt in the first century.
Jon Peddie
3. Developing the 3D Software
Abstract
Relative to the software development of computer graphics, there have been several important introductions, and not in a orderly fashion. Computing power with programmability, storage, and graphics displays were obtainable in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As they became available drawing techniques that had been mechanical through the use of templates became possible in a computer. One such example is the generation of families of 2D curves on a flat surface known as conic sections. The use of curves is found in aircraft, automotive, ship, and appliance designs, plus buildings, bionics, and sports. Computer-aided design was one of, maybe the first application to make use of computer generated curves and surfaces; it was certainly the first commercial application. Next the designs had to be colored and during the 1970s there was an explosion of techniques for surface shading and mapping. After the image is generated, and sometimes while, it is necessary to apply image filters to smooth out lines, and/or reduce blurriness. We are all living in the 3D world, and it is a natural desire to transpose this three-dimensional feature into art as well. In this chapter, I have introduced the algorithmic aspects of computer graphics. CG is a bunch of tricks to make us think we are seeing something that although is not real, looks real. It is suspension of disbelief.
Jon Peddie
4. Developing the Applications
Abstract
The applications that exploit the hardware, algorithms, and other components that make up a 3D capable computer are key to the users experience. Applications that exploit 3D include games, simulations, CAD, visualizations, and web browsers. The development of computers being used for games, combined with the miniaturization of components led to the arcade game, video game consoles, and even hand-held games The development of 3D modeling techniques led to computer aided design (CAD) and the design and development of automobile, airplanes, architecture, and now every product, home, bridge, and skyscraper being design in a computer. The ability of a computer to simulate the physical world has led to molecular modeling for the development of new drugs and disease control, the testing of atomic weapons without having to fire one, and the crashing of cars and bridges without breaking anything or hurting anyone. And all of that has been employed by the film studios to create amazing movies.
Jon Peddie
5. Developing the Computer
Abstract
In order to create the amazing images, models, and special effects seen in the cinema, on TV, in virtualization rooms, and in video games you need powerful computers. Before we could develop computers, as we know them today, we had to figure out the mechanics of computing, and that began with clocks, and navigation systems. Mechanical toys and automatons that mimicked human and animal behavior preceded the industrial revolution. Mechanical toys led to automatic loom, which led to punch cards. The next development was electromechanical relays developed for switching large electrical currents and telephone lines. And relays found their into the earliest form of digital computers as binary switches. From there it was evolution of technology; vacuum tubes (valves), the transistor, the integrated circuit, and the massive multiprocessor computers available in home PCs. The cost and size of the computers have been getting smaller ever since their introduction, while the performance and storage capacity has been increasing. That trend shows no signs of stopping and the history that written today will seem just as quaint and the machines as enormous as the computers from a few decades ago do now.
Jon Peddie
6. The Development of 3D Controllers
Abstract
The first graphics controllers were modified oscilloscope or vector scope controllers, made with vacuum tubes. In the 1980s, the suppliers of workstations, graphics terminals, and PCs were building their own graphics controllers based on commercially available integrated circuits in 1981 IBM introduced the PC with a basic AIB called the Color Graphics Adaptor. Matrox Electronics was the first company to build a graphics board for a Micro or Home computer The first company to offer a “AIB” with a bit-mapped programmable display was Hercules. in the early 1990s the PC market was expanding and was an open chaotic wild west environment. Games were always a part of computers, minicomputers, microcomputers, and PCs. Between the hardware and the application is the application program (API) driver. As new hardware entered the market, such as display controllers, the hardware manufacturer had to write the driver in order to be compatible with the existing applications and OS. Often that meant writing a translator that converted the manufacturer’s new hardware’s instructions to look like and behave like a prior piece of equipment. During the 1990s there was the API wars, ended by Microsoft forcing its Direct × API on the industry. Independent Open GL was introduced in 2000 and is still used for professional graphics.
The graphics controller is the image generator and the heart of the display system.
Jon Peddie
7. Development of Displays: Getting to See 3D
Abstract
Display technology has had three basic phases in its history starting with monochrome vector CRT, going through monochrome raster CRT to color raster CRT, and then using color raster LCD and OLED. CRTs are either vector, or raster. A vector, or electrostatic CRT, (sometimes referred to as “random scan”) was first used as a used in computer systems from the 1940s to as late as the late 1980s and were replaced by electromagnetic deflection raster scan displays (sometimes referred to as “all points addressable” APA display). Vector displays were round, and usually large, 20–24-in. in diameter. Raster displays, based on TV tubes, were rectangular, ranging in size from as small as 9-in., up to 27-in., in the 2000s 30-in. raster-scan LCD computer monitors became available. Generally, if you see a picture of an old computer you can tell what kind of display it has by its shape. A special class of vector display was developed in 1968 called a storage tube. The Direct View Storage Tube emerged as a graphics screen that maintained an image without requiring refreshing (However, the entire screen had to be redrawn for any change). Vector graphics terminals, which evolved from oscilloscopes, required constant refreshing of the image—one of the reasons the storage tube display terminals were so popular.
The first production color picture tube was a 15-in. round screen CRT, made in 1954 by RCA. Raster scan displays for graphics were initially limited to X–Y resolutions such as 256 × 256 to 512 × 512, or 480 × 640 due to the cost of the memory in the frame buffer, and they were slow due to the difficulty of the processing required for scan conversion.
Display standards for the PC were developed by IBM and can still be found in use today (in the form of the venerable VGA standard). Today its alphabet-soup with standards such as DVI, HDMI, DP, and others.
Projectors have gotten small and low cost making very large displays using multiple projectors possible. New technologies in the form of nano-crystals called quantum dots will probably be the final surface display technology until holographic displays become practical.
Jon Peddie
8. Stereoscopic 3D in Computers
Abstract
When first explored and demonstrated, Stereovision (S3D) was a novelty and to some degree still is today. For some situations such as visualization of computer-aided design and medical analysis, S3D is a valuable and necessary capability. For commercial applications such as signage point-of-sale systems, it can be very helpful in communicating the size, scale and details of a product. In entertainment systems such as the cinema, TV, PCs, and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, the technology can enhance the experience but the result is heavily dependent on the quality and construct of the content. And in static or semi-static devices such as digital picture frames, S3D is a conversation piece and is usually interesting. The illusion of depth or perspective was first explored in paintings of the early middle ages to enhance the illusion of space. Photogrammetry is the technique of measuring objects (2D or 3D) from photographs; it date back to 1525. Auto-stereoscopic, also known as “glasses-free”, displays are found in mobile devices such as handheld game consoles, tablets, and smartphones and potentially in cameras and handheld GPS devices. Active shutter glasses switch off or block light alternately at a frame rate that is acceptable to the human eye’s persistence level. It may be a cliché but stereovision does allow the viewer to see more, and can when the content is mastered correctly, give a greater sense of realism, and bring the true 3D’ness out.
Jon Peddie
9. The Future
Abstract
Begun as a way to represent automotive designs and illustrate the construction of molecules 3D graphics use evolved to visualizations of simulated data and artistic representations of imaginary worlds. In order to overcome the processing limitations of the computer graphics had to exploit the characteristics of the eye and brain, and develop visual tricks to simulate realism. The goal is to create graphics images that will automatically overcome the visual cues that create the uncanny valley – the things in the image or the character’s movements that instantly, in milliseconds, tell the viewer this is not real. In the future we not be restricted to looking at a PC, workstation, laptop, TV, or tablet. Our walls, windows, tables, the space in front of us, and even our clothes will be display surfaces. Computer graphics will consume every bit of processing power and every pixel of display available and ask for more. The more we give to 3D computer graphics the better our experience will be, the more realistic, believable, and immersive.
Jon Peddie
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
The History of Visual Magic in Computers
verfasst von
Jon Peddie
Copyright-Jahr
2013
Verlag
Springer London
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4471-4932-3
Print ISBN
978-1-4471-4931-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4932-3

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