Understanding images

the long version

This is a broad-ranging, cross-disciplinary collection of exciting and readable materials as diverse in content as "Lipstick on the Bulldog" (product design) and "Masaccio's Bag of Tricks" (3D graphics and Renaissance art), to "Is Alligator Skin More Wrinkled Then Tree Bark?" (visual textures) and "Crossroads in Virtual Reality" (philosophy of virtual worlds). The fourteen contributions contained in this volume are authored by artists, designers, scientists, psychologists, philosophers and educators. While diverse in content, the selections nonetheless focus on the basic underlying theme explored at the Conference on Understanding Images, which was held at the Manhattan Campus of Pace University in New York City and co-sponsored by the New York City Chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and Pace University's School of Computer Science and Information Systems. The Conference's theme was: how do we understand the complicated, interdisciplinary world of electronic imagery, and what are the means and techniques we employ to visually convey these images to others? These presentations not only pinpoint interesting and complex issues confronting researchers and practitioners, but they also define the problem domains and offer future solution strategies.