Graphics and multimedia

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Graphics and multimedia

Graphics

The use of computers for graphics applications is a relatively recent phenomenon, as it requires suitable monitors and printers to output the results. The computer graphics revo­lution was to a large extent created by the Apple Mac in the mid 1980s, with its graphics-oriented operating system, its high-resolution monitor, and its marriage to the low-cost laser printers that had started to appear. The PC-compatible world is only now, at the start of the 1990s, catching up.

So far as 'the office' is concerned, computer graphics can be considered to embrace the following applications:

• Drawing. Creating designs using the computer's facilities.

• Charting and graphing. Creating bar charts, graphs, etc. of numerical data, as well as word charts for textual data.

• Presentations. Displaying drawings and charts as a 'slide show'.

• Desktop publishing. Bringing together text and graph­ ics for outputting to a high-quality printer.

Often, a number of these applications will be combined in a single package. For example, the two main presentation packages for the PC, Lotus Freelance and Harvard Graph­ ics, include sophisticated drawing, charting, and graphing features. With these packages you can, for example, create a graph of some numerical data, enhance it with suitable drawings and text, then present it as part of a computer slide show. Also available for the PC is the GEM Presentation Team, which includes the GEM Draw, GEM Word- chart, and GEM Graph packages. There are also some very powerful dedicated drawing packages such as CorelDraw.

Computer graphics applications include animation and 'painting' software. These are not only relevant for the entertainment world, they are also used in the office for, for example, sales and other presentations.

Two general comments about this software which are worth making are:

1 They all make extensive use of the mouse, as this is a much better device for painting and drawing on the screen than the keyboard.

2 A variety of methods for presenting the computer images produced by this software are available. For example, laser printers can produce excellent printouts on ordi­nary paper or on transparencies for overhead projectors. Also, the screen image can be photographed using a special camera to produce 35mm slides. More sophisti­cated film recorders will convert the computer graphics file directly into a slide, which overcomes the fuzziness caused by the relatively low resolution of the screen. Another alternative is to connect either a large screen display monitor to the computer, or a special display which sits on top of an overhead projector and throws a large image onto a white screen.

In the first part of this chapter I shall deal with the applications listed above. In the second part, I shall deal with the marriage of the computer with other media tech­ nologies such as audio and video.

Painting software

With painting software, you can draw freehand pictures on the computer screen, using lines of varying widths and colours, and fill in (or 'paint') areas of the drawing with colours and patterns. A variety of painting 'tools' are provided by this software, and you select these by pointing with the mouse at the appropriate icon displayed in an on­ screen 'toolbox'. You can select colours and patterns in a similar way from an on-screen palette.

Figure 7.1 is the screen display from GEM Paint, showing a painting, the toolbox, and the palette. The painting tools include:

• A pencil to draw lines.

• A spraycan to create air-brush effects.

• An eraser to rub out.

• A microscope to zoom in on part of the picture in order to make very detailed and precise changes.

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Figure 7.1 A GEM Paint display

Clip-art libraries are also available for many painting pro­ grams. These consist of collections of drawings and artwork, produced on the computer by professional artists and designers, which can be freely added to your own pictures. They include images of people, office equipment, buildings, etc. You can also add small amounts of text to your picture.

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