History and Technology of Digital Imaging Visual material

History and Technology of Digital Imaging Visual material used from the film Minority Report, TM and © 2002 Twentieth Century Fox and Dreamworks SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005

Image reading • Visual communication is always coded –“It seems transparent only because we know the code already, at least passively — but without knowing what it is we know, without having the means for talking about what it is we do when we read an image. ” • Our culture is moving from textual to visual –“Until now, language, especially written language, was the most highly valued, the most frequently analyzed, the most prescriptively taught and the most meticulously policed code in our society. ” • Visual “literacy” is not taught and needs to be –“If schools are to equip students adequately for the new semiotic order, if they are not to produce people unable to use the 'new writing' actively and effectively, then the old boundaries between 'writing' on the one hand, traditionally the form of literacy without which people cannot adequately function as citizens, and, on the other hand, the 'visual arts', a marginal subject for the specially gifted, and 'technical drawing', a technical subject with limited and specialized application, should be redrawn. ” SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005 2

Image technology · development of technology (e. g. colour, brushes, canvas, etc. ) · development of presentation techniques (e. g. central perspective) technology (e. g. camera, film stock, etc. ) · development of presentation techniques (e. g. illumination) technology (e. g. camera, compression, manipulation) · development of presentation techniques (e. g. automatic collage) Painting SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005 VERMEER VAN DELFT, c. 1665, Oil on canvas, 46, 5 x 40 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague Photo (1830) Digital image (1950) 3

The eye Capture Transcoding SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005

Vision – A matter of light 520 Wavelength 550 nm Newton’s experimentum crucis 500 780 480 „no colour" 380 SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005

The camera Analog camera produces a continuous image, simulating the capture of the eye. Negative (reverse reality) Actual image (various manipulation processes) Analog technology is expensive and complicated to handle. SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005

The digital image The image is a matrix of values, representing the colour, texture, dimension, etc. SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005

The digital image - colour RGB: Red, Green and Blue light get mixed Use in screens or cameras CMY(K): Fraction of white light is removed Cyan R B und G Magenta G R und B Yellow B R und G Used in printing SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005 HSB: Hue (Wavelength value) Saturation (Amount of hue in a colour) Brightness Used in image editing software

The digital image - Texture The distinctive physical composition or structure of something, especially with respect to the size, shape, and arrangement of its parts • structural analysis : small units and rules for composition • statistical analysis : local grey values, regularity, contrast SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005

The digital image - size 1 Bit -> black and white 8 Bit -> greyscale 16 Bit -> 64. 000 colours (High Colour) 24 Bit -> 16 Mil. colours (True Colour) File size for True Colour 640 x 480 x 3 800 x 600 x 3 1024 x 768 x 3 1280 x 1024 x 3 SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005 = = 0, 87 MB 1, 37 MB 2, 25 MB 3, 75 MB

The digital image - manipulation Pixel or vector Image format • Resolution • Mode • File type Image enhancement • resize • colour enhancement • artistic filters • establishing planes • any other sort of manipulation ALWAYS ask: what do I intend to do with the image now AND in the future? SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005

The digital image - Questions What does the Cartesian grid representation of an image tell us semantically/semiotically? Are there ways a digital image can keep its integrity? If so, why should it? SIMS-IS 146 – 17. 03. 2005