The Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) at The Ohio State University has a 24 year history of research and instruction in computer graphics and animation. The Center has a true interdisciplinary character and attempts to merge scientific investigation with aesthetic ideals. While it is administratively located in the College of the Arts, it provides leadership in computer graphics and animation development to support instruction and research in both the arts and the sciences. The Center offers a context in which students and faculty representing both disciplines can learn the power of the digital syntax. It promotes the study of an aesthetic message design that can have an impact upon such diverse areas as computer software development, advertising and television promotion, the visual and performing arts, and scientific computing and visualization.
Faculty from throughout the College of the Arts and the College of Engineering conduct their research at ACCAD and supervise the work of graduate students that are specializing in the role of technology in various areas of the arts. These students are enrolled in graduate programs in the Departments of Art, Art Education, Computer and Information Science, Industrial Design, Dance, Theater, Education, and the Schools of Music and Architecture. Students from these various departments fulfill the degree requirements within their individual programs, and do their advanced research and studies in computer graphics at ACCAD. Many of these students participate as Graduate Teaching Associates for undergraduate courses in microcomputer graphics and animation offered by the Department of Art Education using an Amiga Microcomputer Laboratory. Others work as Graduate Research Associates for externally funded grants and research projects in the Center. Some of these current projects include:
* Visualization - materials science, computational fluid dynamics in aircraft engine design and in commercial kitchen interiors
* Arts - dance, theater, fine arts, animation
* Education - visualization in math and science education, intercultural communication, digital multimedia and hypermedia
* Medical - 3D brain visualization, surgical simulation, digital anatomy representation
Funding for ACCAD has been from the University general fund, as well as from a State of Ohio Academic Challenge Grant and research grants from industry and various state and federal research agencies. ACCAD has also received some support from several organizations in education and the arts, including the Ohio Arts Council, the Ohio Board of Regents, and the Fernbank Museum.
ACCAD uses this funding to maintain a state-of-the-art facility that employs expert staff from both the disciplines of art and technology, and utilizes current technology in computers, film, and video. This equipment includes graphics workstations from Apple Computer, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Silicon Graphics. Peripherals include specialized processors from AT&T and Sun, and frame buffers from Raster Technologies. An Abekas digital storage system and a Panasonic WORM Optical Disc are used for video output, and a Solitaire film recorder is used for film output. Several brands of scanners and digitizing equipment are used, including a Polhemus 3D digitizer. The physical facility is shared with the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC). ACCAD personnel participated in the development of the apE visualization software that is used as the visual front end to the Cray Y/MP supercomputer, and continue to provide consulting support for OSC and its industry and institutional clients. This relationship with OSC provides access to the Cray and to the Ohio Visualization Laboratory (OVL), with its collection of workstations and the video and film recording and editing facilities mentioned above.
Faculty, staff, and students from ACCAD have published widely in the computer graphics, art, and scientific visualization literature. They have been very active in conferences and professional organizations, including a significant presence at the annual SIGGRAPH conference, sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery. ACCAD students have also been very successful in competitions and exhibits, achieving much recognition including the following partial list of recent awards:
Joan Staveley - Art & Design Award - Computer Graphics Society (Japan) - 1991
William Woodard - Japan CG Grand Prix - 1st Prize-General Section - 1991
William Woodard - Prix Arts Electronica - Golden Nica Award - 1991
Leslie Bishko - Japan CG Grand Prix - 2nd Prize-Still Fine Arts - 1991
Yina Chang - Japan CG Grand Prix - 3rd Prize-Still Fine Arts - 1991
Marsha McDevitt - Japan CG Grand Prix - 1st Prize-Still FIne Arts - 1991
Robert Lurye - National Computer Graphics Association - 1st Prize-Student/Faculty - 1990
Joan Staveley - Prix Arts Electronica - Golden Nica Award - 1989
Susan Amkraut* - Prix Arts Electronica - Award of Distinction - 1989
Michael Girard*
Gregory Foss* - International Computer - 2nd Place-Research - 1988
Dave Haumann* - Animation & Computer Graphics
Robert Lurye - SPACE - 1st Prize-Video - 1988
*Collaboration
ACCAD has been very successful in preparing its graduates for careers in computer graphics and animation. Its graduates are involved with various institutions that play a major role in the status of the discipline. Some of the more prominent of these organizations are listed below by category:
* Academia
The Ohio State University, Texas A&M University, University of Illinois, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Michigan, Northern Arizona University, University of Cincinnati, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rutgers, Ringling School of Design, Moore School of Art, Bowling Green, Rutgers, Damsstaart (Germany)
* Industry
Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Batelle Labs, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Adobe Systems, General Electric, Vertigo, Computervision, Alias Research, Xerox PARC, Star Technologies, AT&T
* Production
Metrolight Studios, Disney Studios, XAOS, Pixar, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Lamb and Associates, Pacific Data Images, San Francisco Production Group, LucasFilms
