Speaker: Mr Don Black
When: 11:00AM Friday 14th March 2008
Venue: General Purpose South 78-420
Abstract:
Scientific Visualization is finally coming of age, thanks to the cost-effective graphics card technology spurred by the video game marketplace. It is now possible to generate computer visualizations of esoteric and mathematical concepts heretofore beyond the ken of the human eye. An extraordinary example is the visualization of objects moving past the observer at relativistic velocities - velocities near the speed of light where objects shrink and time slows down. What would they look like....?
Don V Black will present some 30 minutes of Computer Generated animation sequences representing the State-of-the-art in the field of Scientific Visualization of Relativistically Moving Objects. Don will briefly discuss New and Exotic Theories of Physics such as "Large Extra Dimensions" (LXD) as they relate to Visualization, and the Special and General Theories of Relativity as they are projected before you for your edificaton and amusement.
This presentation is an 'outtake' of Don's research into "Visualizing Non-Intuitive Physical Phenomena" at UCI. As a result of this research, "new" physics will be able to be explored in a virtual laboratory on the desktop. The animation sequences are outtakes of SIGGRAPH and other Computer Graphics and Visualization conferences held over the last few years. In addition to the animations of Dr Daniel Weiskopf, Corvin Zahn and Andrew Hamilton, Don will provide a non-mathematical overview of Einstein's Theory of Relativity and the field of Relativistic Visualization.
Biography:
Don V Black is currently owner and director of Digital ChoreoGraphics, a computer graphics software development firm specializing in visualization, Chairman of the IEEE Orange County Computer Society and a graduate student in the School of Information and Computer Science at UC -Irvine. Don did his undergraduate work at North Carolina State University (NCSU), and then accepted a position with the Computer Center at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), supporting the Triangle Universities Computation Center (TUCC) interactive computer graphics systems.
In 1976, Don joined the microcomputer renaissance when he founded Digital ChoreoGraphics, a software firm specializing in interactive computer graphics for the microcomputer. Digital ChoreoGraphics developed a number of commercial animation, CAD, and visualization products including EAGER 3D, ProductOne, SnapShot, Animage, Floor Visions, Splash!, and PlanScape.
Contact: Dr John Williams