2.6. Digital art
Digital art is art created on a computer in digital form. Digital art can be purely computer-generated or taken from another source, such as a scanned photograph. Processing is in fact a software for creating art with a computer. In this area there are other interesting disciplines:
- Demoscene
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The demoscene is a computer subculture that appear in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Initially they were impressive-looking graphical animations used by hackers as a symbol. Lately they become a way of generating complex 3D graphics usually programmed in low level assembly language. That was because by the time demos appeared, computers where not powerful enough to process such complexity from a high level programming language.
Some captures from Second Reality by Future Crew. Winner of Assembly'93 PC demo competition.
- Fractals
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Fractals are shapes that are recursively constructed or self-similar. Fractals are used in may disciplines like medicine, music, cosmology and computer graphics where mathematical functions generate still images, animations and even music.
Fractal example
- ASCII art
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ASCII art consists of pictures created with any text editor using characters defined by ASCII. Originally they were used when early printers lacked graphics ability. Probably the simplest form of ASCII art are the well-known smilies, combinations of two or three characters for expressing emotion in text.
ASCII Art image
- Rendering
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Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model, by means of a software program. The model is a description of three dimensional objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. It would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture and lighting information. It has uses in computer and video games, simulators, movies or TV special effects.
- Raytracing
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Ray tracing is a general technique from geometrical optics of modelling the path taken by light by following rays of light as they interact with optical surfaces. The term is applied to mean a specific rendering algorithmic approach in 3D computer graphics, where mathematically-modelled visualizations of programmed scenes are produced using a technique which follows rays from the eyepoint outward, rather than originating at the light sources.
Photo-realistic image made with the PovRay software.
- Video games
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Video games are computer games where a video display such as a monitor or television is the primary feedback device. The social and artistic importance of video games has recently been officially acknowledged by The British Academy of Film and Television Arts elevating the sector to become an equal to those for Film and Television.