Visualization (computer graphics)

Visualization or visualisation (see spelling differences) 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 man. Examples from history include cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek geometry, and Leonardo da Vinci's revolutionary methods of technical drawing for engineering and scientific purposes.

Visualization today has ever-expanding applications in science, education, engineering (e.g., product visualization), interactive multimedia, medicine, etc. Typical of a visualization application is the field of computer graphics. The invention of computer graphics may be the most important development in visualization since the invention of central perspective in the Renaissance period. The development of animation also helped advance visualization.

Overview

The use of visualization to present information is not a new phenomenon. It has been used in maps, scientific drawings, and data plots for over a thousand years. Examples from cartography include Ptolemy's Geographia (2nd Century AD), a map of China (1137 AD), and Minard's map (1861) of Napoleon's invasion of Russia a century and a half ago. Most of the concepts learned in devising these images carry over in a straight forward manner to computer visualization. Edward Tufte has written three critically acclaimed books that explain many of these principles.

Autodesk 3ds Max

Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio, then 3D Studio Max is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabilities, a flexible plugin architecture and can be used on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is frequently used by video game developers, many TV commercial studios and architectural visualization studios. It is also used for movie effects and movie pre-visualization. To its modeling and animation tools, the latest version of 3ds Max also features shaders (such as ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering), dynamic simulation, particle systems, radiosity, normal map creation and rendering, global illumination, a customizable user interface, and its own scripting language.

History

The original 3D Studio product was created for the DOS platform, by Gary Yost and the Yost Group, and published by Autodesk. After 3D Studio DOS Release 4, the product was rewritten for the Windows NT platform, and renamed "3D Studio MAX". This version was also originally created by the Yost Group. It was released by Kinetix, which was at that time Autodesk's division of media and entertainment.

Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Systems and used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. Among other things, After Effects can be used for keying, tracking, rotoscoping, compositing and animation. It also functions as a very basic non-linear editor, audio editor and media transcoder.

Description

Adobe After Effects is software primarily used for creating motion graphics and visual effects. It allows users to animate, edit, and compose media in 2D or 3D space with many different built-in tools and third party plug-ins which can be downloaded from the Internet depending on what type of plug in the user is looking for. It also provides individual attention to variables like parallax and also user adjustable angles of observation.

Adobe After Effects is a layer-oriented program. Each individual media object like video clips, still images, audio clips, etc. runs on its own. In contrast, other Non-Linear Editing Systems use a system where individual media objects can occupy the same track as long as they do not overlap at the same time. This track-oriented system is more suitable for editing and can keep project files more simple. The layer oriented system that Adobe After Effects has is suitable for extensive video effects work and also key framing. Other compositing packages, especially the ones that employ tree or node workflows, such as Nuke and Fusion, are better suited to managing complex interconnected data flow within a composite. Adobe After Effects is capable of countering the problem somewhat by selectively hiding layers or by grouping them into pre-compositions.