CS 99D - The Science of Art - Online Projects

Winter Quarter, 2000

The CS 99D projects took many forms, including papers, drawings, computer models, and computer programs. This page includes some of the online content of the computer-oriented projects. There were many fascinating projects; this is just a sampling of those suited to the web. Most of them are final course projects; a few are the verbal presentations associated with earlier assignments in the course. Click on a picture to see the corresponding project. Most are PowerPoint files; a few are HTML pages.

Full list of final course projects.

	Botanical illustration Elaine Yu A survey of the history of botanical illustration. This was Elaine's first assignment. Her final project, on the Munsell color tree, is further down the page.
	Panoramas Jason Anderson A survey of the panorama as an image format. Jason starts with a history of the 19th-century phenonenon of building large-scale rotundas for viewing painted panoramas (image at left), and he takes up right up through the QuickTimeVR file panoramic image file format.
	Visual Illusions Jason Anderson The last entry was Jason's first assignment. Here's his final project: a tour of visual illusions, especially those related to perspective, and an insightful survey of the theories proposed to explain them.
	Visual Illusions Chris Landauer Another tour of visual illusions, this one focusing on 2D effects. Don't miss the section on Neckar cubes and other ambiguous figures. Chris built a few of them to show us how they work.
	Matte Painting: Art in Film Special Effects Brooke Hanson An explanation and historical survey of matte painting and compositing techniques for the movies. Hint: it started earlier in this century than you think.
	The Munsell Color Tree Janice Ahn, Elaine Yau A survey of color classification systems, a detailed description of the Munsell color tree system, and some unusual uses of color in art. For their oral presentation, Janice and Elaine built a Munsell tree from paint chips!
	The Art of Rembrandt Kate Berland, Angelita Garcia How did Rembrandt's palette change over his lifetime? Kate and Angelita analyze the color histograms of paintings from each period of his life, and they come up with some surprising results. (Their histograms also contain some bugs, which haven't been pinned down yet.)
	Playful Imaginings: The Illusions of M.S. Escher Megan Rible A survey of the visual illusions of the artist M.C. Escher. In particular, Megan argues that some of his illusions represent plausible realities, while some are impossible. As proof, she built a 3D model (shown at left) from one of his drawings. Quite a feat!

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