From kriz Mon Apr 15 22:19:25 1996 To: fox@fox.cs.vt.edu Subject: Re: suggestions for Computing Across the Curriculum task force Cc: kriz@wave.esm.vt.edu Ed: All of your suggestions, items a-g, are good. I'm inclined to budget my time not to commit to all of what you suggest. I know that I can make the computer graphics minor a reality but unlike yourself I don't have the resources or connections with others on campus to implement the other items you mention, all of which are good ideas. Therefore I would be willing to work with others on broader issues regarding CAC other than just a graphics minor. I particularly like the idea of meeting with Provost's office, CEUT, Educational Technologies, Computing Center and CS and meet for a 1 day brainstorming session to define a pilot workshop where computer graphics would only be a part of the total proposed FDI-phaseII. Although the overlap between multimedia and visualization is at times obvious, my definition would not include multimedia into visualization or visualization into multimedia. As a research tool "scientific" visualization has very little to do with multimedia except for presentation of results in a visualization project. For example the 90/91.../95 Visualization Conferences have absolutely no components related to multimedia. It is how these graphical tools are used that differentiates the two disciplines. None-the-less the link between the two should be made. I would however include audio, video, animation, and text as different media formats within multimedia. The way I would explain the difference is simply that visualization uses graphics to discover new information embedded in raw data. When used in the sciences we classify it as scientific visualization. I would recommend that visualization be included along with other useful graphical tools as part of a graphics minor which can part of a larger CAC program. A minor in graphics can than be used by students to focus in Multimedia, Scientific Visualization, Computer Art, etc. I would also not put Computer Art under Visualization or Multimedia either. I think if visualization had been offered as a subset of multimedia, over half of the students in the ESM5984 class would not have taken the course. I plan of working most of Tuesday on a final report for Wednesday's meeting. I will include many of your recommendations but mostly I'll try to nail down a graphics minor. Besides a graphics minor is something Leonard Ferrari and Jack Carroll both agree on. That in itself is noteworthy and worth pursuing. Regards, Ron Kriz