Painting by Numbers

Sitting in his Graduate School of Design (GSD) office, Daniel L. Schodeck boldly proclaims, "design will be a completely different profession in 20 years." The engine for change, the professor of Architectural Technology says, will be the school's Lab for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis, which he directs.

If the past 20 years are any indication, Schodeck's prediction should come true.

The lab was founded in 1965 and exists as a quasi-independent organization at the GSD. Historically, the lab concentrated on displaying spatial data from landscape architecture as well as developing computer catrography. Currently, the seven-member staff is also working in architecture modelling, techniques for color shading and micro-computer based technology

Explaining the two decades of use for landscape architecture, R Denis White, a research associate at the lab says "Graphics allows you to assemble as much data as is necessary--endangered animal habitats water quality, visual quality...to make a geographic information system."

In the last five years the cost of color displays decreased which began a new phase of advances. "With the use of color terminals we can do multi-representations of one area," he says.

One of the pioneers in land-use planning and management is Carl F. Steinitz, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design. Steinitz has been studying the Western slope of the Rocky Mountains near Gunnison, Col.

He is currently "looking about 20 years into the future of the Yosemite National Park. It is an area which is very complicated as an international resource which is slowly becoming a metropolitan park for Californians."

He explains that instead of people seeking a "mythical wilderness experience of early 19th century America, lots of people are just coming to picnic." The physical and managerial response of the park service is not clear--either they accomodate the changes or limit people's activities because Yosemite is a preserve of national importance

Computer graphics are optimal for this type of project because all the data can be displayed and stored in one terminal.

Since 1966 Steinitz and his students have been using computer graphics--"a technique for both managing the information we wish to analyze and displaying the results, including those of design and of evaluations," Steinitz explains.

"We are now on the fourth generation of computer systems, including programs and its just getting better and better," Steinitz says. It is also becoming impossible to avoid this field, Steinitz adds, pointing out that for Yosemite, all the original data is presented in computer form "Either the students use computer graphics or they don't do the project all," be says

Now, the lab is adding another area to its repertoire. Shedeck says that "only in the past couple of years have we discussed problems in architecture, we're starting to give the lab a more balanced approach." In architecture, the lab is developing techniques for use during the production stage of designing buildings "There is nothing available yet for the initial design stages," he says

Mark van Norman, who has a joint appointment as a Research Associate in computer graphics and as a Lecturer in Architecture, says that in the past five years new techniques like solid modelling methods have become possible because of improved software which is broadening graphics' applications. The computer can represent the physical model itself instead of a two-dimensional structure. According to van Norman this ability to reproduce a desk 100 times in a few minutes will revolutionize traditional architecture.

"Computer graphics mimics the manual methods and speeds up the process," he says The computer stores the model of the physical object itself and then can reconstruct any drawing from its won model

Beside the increased speed sketching and the three-dimensional view of the models, the computer can also store information a form that allows it to perform energy and structural cost analyses.

But since the solid modelling equipment is very expensive it is limited in the "big bucks--defense, automobiles, engineering and aircraft," van Norman says. "We're getting to the point where the lab has the capabilities for it."

Recently packaged software was marketed by "scores of manufacturers for the first time," van Norman says. Its use he feels has increased considerably although the costs are still relatively high

"A major goal now is to take these tools and bring them into studios," van Norman says. But, he continues, "many architects are understandably skeptical...we're dealing through the computer priesthood."

Van Norman's own research focuses on developing new interactive tools between designers and machines so that the programmers can more easily modify projects. His current work involves designing the work stations for offices with computers which is being funded by a grant from IBM. Most of the labs' projects are sponsored by local and federal government agencies or the National Endowment for the Arts

In addition to the GSD, computer graphics have spread throughout the University. The computer Sciences Department last August hired Assistant Professor Mark Friedell because they were looking for faculty knowledgeable in computer graphics. He will be offering Computer Sciences 175 this spring, the first time introduction to computer graphics has been available to undergraduates.

Friedell's own work is concerned with viewing computer systems with intelligence sufficient for it to define its own pictures "The difficulty as I see it, is not producing realistic images, but getting computer graphics systems to synthesize their own image."

The Chemistry Department began experimental graphics displays in 1967 and "it is now essential to the research," says Block systems manager of Computer Facilities in the Chemistry Department Theoretical chemists use the graphics for molecular modelling, crystallography, and for the display of complicated structures rotated in time

Block says the main inhibitor to greater usage is the expense. "The cost of computer graphics equipment is half the cost of the computer itself."

Baird Professor of Science Francis M. Pipkin says that the department has been using graphics for a decade The computer can display data from experiments with high energy proton collisions among other research activities

The statistics Department acquired a computer graphics terminal a year ago" and is using it at full capacity," says Professor of Statistics Peter J Huber "It is very helpful for data analysis." Huber approximated the cost of the computer the discs and color display at $68,000

Boom

And Andy Mitchell a third year GSD student who has been working on the Yosemite project summed up the proliferation. "It's a boom industry for sure. A lot of people are becoming aware of its [graphics] application."