Multimedia and Computer Graphics

Module code: CO2016

The area of multimedia includes a wide variety of data – in this module we will deal with pictures, animation, audio and 3D landscapes. Images are built out of pixels and each pixel has a certain colour or grey tone; handling images on this level will allow us to analyse and manipulate them.

On the practical side we will program effects in Java, for example for bringing images to life (animation) we will use the established Internet standard SVG. Images in SVG are described using XML documents which allows for scalability and animation; SVG has similar features to FLASH.

Completing this introduction to multimedia data we will turn our attention to audio data. The understanding of how to digitise sound and how to deal with sound in the digitalised format (e.g. writing sound effects) and its practical implementation will be the focus here. In the last part of this module we will create virtual landscapes using Java 3D - these landscapes will contain different forms of lighting and lighting effects, moving objects and objects with different behaviours (e.g. collision behaviours) along with the basic concepts. The main computer language used in this module is Java, including Java 3D.