In 1996 the Center continued the nationally recognized undergraduate and graduate programs specific to each site as well as the Center-wide graduate televideo seminar, all-site grad student meetings and the Access Program for undergraduate women, led by one of the Center faculty. Since the Center's inception in 1991, nearly two hundred undergraduates have worked in its labs, more than a third of whom were supported with Center funds. The Center continues to create innovative undergraduate courses that reflect interdisciplinary Center-related research areas, such as ``3D photography'' at Caltech, which combines computer vision and graphics techniques and is taught by two Center faculty and a colleague from Electrical Engineering. Undergraduate programs begun in 1996 include a pilot guidance program (Undergraduate Research Preparation) for students at Cornell who participated as high school students in the Cornell Summer Architecture Program. The inaugural group consists of four black women.
The Center has started three new educational resource initiatives that serve a range of grade levels, from K-12 through graduate. Two are Web-based projects focused on creating teaching materials for use in computer graphics courses and related subject matter. WARP brings together the work of Center faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff from all the sites in a set of Java applets targeted mostly to undergraduate and graduate-level CS courses. The Greenhouse, an offshoot of the Summer Workshop in Computer Graphics and 3D Geometric Modeling, is a collection of applets, lesson plans, and activities created by high school teacher Workshop participants working with undergraduate Workshop teaching assistants. The material reflects the interdisciplinary makeup of the teachers, ranging from lesson plans and examples of student work for a computer-based unit on optical illusions to an applet on linear interpolation and animated three-dimensional concept illustrations for physics. In addition, the Center worked on an education outreach project at Cornell called Interactive Tools for the Classroom of the Future, developing physical simulation tools for physics education using a fully interactive 3D environment with object behaviors based on the laws of physics. This project uses Center software resources from several sites, including the OBB-Tree collision library from UNC and the VRAPP library from Brown (with which it may be possible to make a multiuser version). The simulation tools are being tested in local classrooms and also established at the Ithaca Sciencenter.
The Center's three K-12 outreach efforts, The Summer Workshop in Computer Graphics and 3D Geometric Modeling, the Utah High School Computing Institute and Morphing Workshop, and the Cornell Summer Architecture Program were all repeated this year and went well. A new program, introduced this year for ninth grade girls, the Artemis Project, has the goal of enhancing self-confidence and building leadership skills through hands-on experience with computers. The Center was instrumental in getting this program off the ground and making it a success. The initial group consisted of eight minority girls.
The results of Center education and outreach were shared with educational communities at a number of conferences, including IEEE 1996 Frontiers in Education, at which the Center presented four papers in a special session panel.
The Center continues to host well over 1,000 visitors a year in laboratory tours.
High school teachers learn about concepts in 3D graphics and ways in which computer graphics can motivate the teaching of math, science, and art. Completely funded by the Center. Other sites participate by giving televideo lectures.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/outrea/bswcg.html
Utah High School Computing Institute (Utah)
The High School Computing Institute brings students from outlying, mostly rural areas of Utah in contact with computer technologies integral to the future of design and manufacturing. Partially funded by the Center.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/outrea/utahhsci.html and http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hsci/
Utah High School Computing Institute on Morphing Workshop (Utah)
An outgrowth of the Utah High School Computing Institute. Students return during the year for this special one-day workshop. Partially funded by the Center.
Cornell Summer Session for Design Professions (Cornell)
The six-week Cornell Summer Architecture Program incorporates Center lectures and lab sessions to introduce high school students to three-dimensional modeling, rendering, animation, digital photography, and remote design collaboration. Partial funding for this aspect of the Summer Architecture Program is provided by the Center.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/outrea/cornellssdp.html
The Artemis Project (Brown)
The Artemis Project is a five-week summer leadership program for ninth grade girls, designed to enhance self-confidence and build leadership skills through hands-on experience with computers and discussion of important issues relevant to the lives of women and girls. Substantial proportion of funding provided by the Center.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/outrea/greenhouse/artemis/home.html
Undergraduate Research Access (Cornell)
An outgrowth of the Cornell Summer Architecture Program, this program helps guide students interested in computer graphics to get sufficient background in math and computer science so that they can more effectively participate in the field at any technical level. The inaugural group consists of four black women. Funded by the Center.
The Access Program (Utah)
A scholarship and mentoring program for undergraduate women who show promise in science and engineering. Run by a Center faculty member but otherwise not funded by the Center.
Center-wide Graduate Televideo Seminar (Brown, Caltech, Cornell, UNC, Utah)
The Center's televideo infrastructure is used to teach a graduate-level computer graphics seminar attended by students at all five sites and including lectures from all five sites.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/education/course96-97/home.html
Center-wide graduate workshops (Brown, Caltech, Cornell, UNC, Utah)
Annual Center-wide graduate student workshops focus on research talks and demonstrations that allow students to share their work and exchange ideas.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/edu/STC_Education.html
Kids on Campus Day, for National Science and Technology Week
We once again participated in celebrating National Science and Technology Week with Kids on Campus Day, in collaboration with the Cornell Theory Center. More than 300 kids attended, accompanied by at least 200 parents. A live teleconferencing hookup from Cornell was hosted at the Sciencenter in Ithaca.
Center Tours and Demonstrations (All sites, and especially UNC)
The Center Labs hosted well over 1000 visitors (800 at UNC alone) by members of industry, educators, and students, and the general public.
The WARP project is a set of applets and other Web-based teaching tools for computer graphics. WARP resources are created by Center faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff. (This project has just begun.)
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stcrea/Out.html.
The Greenhouse, A Curricular Resource Project (Brown)
The efforts of teachers in the Summer Workshop in Computer Graphics and 3D Geometric Modeling have further expanded through a Workshop Web site containing lesson plans, exercises, activities, animations, and interactive software for a range of disciplines. Teachers come to Brown one Saturday a month to work on their projects.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/outrea/greenhouse/home.html
Interactive Tools for the Classroom of the Future (Cornell)
A project involving a postdoc, grad student, and undergraduates to develop physical simulation tools for physics education using a fully interactive 3D environment with object behaviors based on the laws of physics. Uses Center resources from several sites. One year funded by EHR, with funding for ongoing development currently being sought.
A panel on the programs and strategies of the Center's educational outreach, from the graduate to the K-12 level. Four papers presented (by Center Director, Utah PI and co-PI, and the Outreach Director).
Association of Teachers of Mathematics in New England Annual Conference
The Outreach Director spoke about using computer graphics in high school and Undergraduate math courses.
Fourth Annual Computer and Computation Sciences Program for Minority Use (Caltech)
Talk by Caltech PI about computer graphics and lab tour/demonstrations.
Women's Caucus for Art National Convention
The Outreach Director chaired a panel entitled ``Women Computer Artists as Ambassadors: the Culture of Art and the Culture of Science.''
College Art Association National Conference
The Outreach Director spoke on panel about new visualization technologies, addressing some of the implications of photographic realism in computer graphics, and on a panel on intellectual property rights, addressing graphics and imaging issues not adequately taken into account in proposed copyright legislation.
The Brown site has a research relationship with NASA that is directly related to the Center's research program in interaction and scientific visualization. This three-year contract was awarded an unprecedented fourth year.
Center researchers are working in advisory or consulting capacities with companies from startups to industrial giants, including Lightscape Technologies Inc., a startup company in San Jose, CA, Electronic Book Technologies, Inc. and the Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics, both based in Providence, RI, the Center for Complex Systems and Visualization, Bremen, Germany, and Wholly Light Graphics in Jerusalem, Israel. Center PIs also hold positions on the technical advisory boards of Electronic Book Technologies, Inc., the Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics, Integrated Computing Engines, Inc., and Microsoft.
Center PIs have served on numerous panels for peer-reviewed journals and conferences and have given many keynotes, panel talk, papers, and presentations for industrial and academic audiences, including a joint talk by three center PIs (Don Greenberg, Henry Fuchs, and Andries van Dam) at the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board Tenth Anniversary Symposium at the National Academy of Sciences.
Other highlights include PI Don Greenberg's new course for Master's in Business Administration students in Cornell's Johnson School of Management entitled ``Imaging and the Electronic Age,'' which introduces business students to emerging technologies and changing paradigms of communications and computing. The relationship between the Cornell site and the Johnson School is expected to expand further in the near future. Also, the Center continues to build up the The Memex and Beyond Web site, a major comprehensive research, educational, and collaborative web site integrating the historical record of and current research in hypermedia. (The current index has over 20,000 entries.) Please see http://cs.brown.edu/memex.Center members participated in virtually all important and relevant conferences, e.g., ACM SIGGRAPH, UIST, the ACM 1996 Symposium on Volume Visualization, and IEEE Visualization 96, where once again the Center had a booth.
The Center makes available a collection of free research-related software on the Internet. An index to this software can be found at http://localhost/stc/outrea/community.html#software.
Center personnel were active in the VAG (VRML Architecture Group) as it created the VRML 2.0 spec. through a unique Web-based democratic feedback and voting process. The Director was also helpful in discussions about establishing a VRML Consortium and will probably serve on its Board of Directors when it is formed; the Center will be a member of the Consortium.