Three-Dimensional Mean-Shift Edge Bundling for the Visualization of Functional Connectivity in the Brain

Computer animation, for many people, is synonymous with big-screen events
such as
Star Wars,
Toy Story,
and
Titanic
. But not all, or arguably even most, computer
animation is done in Hollywood. It is not unusual for Saturday morning
cartoons to be entirely computer generated. Computer games take advantage of
state-of-the-art computer graphics techniques. Real-time performance-driven
computer animation has appeared at SIGGRAPH
1
and on
Sesame Street.
Desktop
computer animation is now possible at a reasonable cost. Computer animation on
the Web is routine. Digital simulators for training pilots, SWAT teams, and
nuclear reactor operators are commonplace. The distinguishing characteristics of
these various venues are the cost, the image quality desired, and the amount and
type of interaction allowed. This book does not address the issues concerned with
a particular venue, but it does present the algorithms and techniques used to do
animation in all of them.
In computer animation, any value that can be changed can be animated. An
object’s position and orientation are obvious candidates for animation, but all of
1. SIGGRAPH is the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM’s) Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics.
The ACM is the main professional group for computer scientists.
C H A P T E R
1
Introduction
Team LRN
2
      
1: Introduction
the following can be animated as well: the object’s shape, its shading parameters,
its texture coordinates, the light source parameters, and the camera parameters.
To set the context for computer animation, it is important to understand its
heritage, its history, and certain relevant concepts. This chapter discusses motion
perception, the technical evolution of animation, animation production, and
notable works in computer animation. It provides a grounding in computer animation
as a field of endeavor.
1.1 Perception
Images can quickly convey a large amount of information because...