TECH 511
The Development of Graphics in Technology

Final Examination Study Guide

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of topics for the midterm exam. Anything presented in the instructor presentations, class discussions, or the reading assignments is a potential source for a test question. Also review the Midterm Examination study guide to refresh those specific topics.

  1. Definitions of introductory terms and their relationships
  2. How are these terms related to (computer) graphics
  3. Engineering drawing (graphics) and its role as a language
  4. Ancient Greeks and their development of geometry
  5. The various means of projection and their utility (perspective, isometric, descriptive, etc.)
  6. The role of conventions and standard practices and their relationship to perspective, isometric, descriptive geometry, and orthographic drawing
  7. The contributions of Gaspard Monge and how that influenced future efforts
  8. The evolution of computer graphics from the History of Computer Graphics video -people, techniques, processes, and tools
  9. Gardner's notion of multiple intelligences,and how it differs from traditional ideas (from what areas does Gardner draw information to make his case, particularly his eight criteria)
  10. What is an intelligence, domain, and field?
  11. What is visual intelligence, and why is it important?
  12. The effects of excluding art from mainstream curricula
  13. The role of sketching in a person's thought process
  14. Describe the various "learning difficulties" that West discusses and how they are related to visual processes and creativity
  15. What is the role of nonverbal thought in technology?
  16. How are creativity and visual thinking related?
  17. What are the differences between the distal (physical) and proximal (perceptual) worlds?
  18. What is the proximal stimulus?
  19. What are the similarities and differences between monocular and binocular vision?
  20. Describe version and vergence movements
  21. Why is perception described as having an emergent quality?
  22. What is retinal disparity and how does it affect our perceptions of our world?
  23. What is the horopter? Give a few examples of various horopters.
  24. What is stereopsis, and why is it important?
  25. Sketch an example of visual angle and describe its relationship to depth perception.
  26. Describe the views of Empiricist, Psychophysical, and Gestalt psychology as they relate to stimulus inadequacy.
  27. Describe the pictorial and oculomotor cues that promote accurate spatial perception.
  28. What are the automatic organizing functions that affect our visual perception (Gestalt)?
  29. How do the specific distance tendency and the equidistance tendency affect our perception of objects?
  30. What is the moon illusion?
  31. What is the size-distance invariance hypothesis?
  32. Describe the differences between egocentric and exocentric distance.
  33. What are the concepts of size constancy and familiar size?
  34. What is the basic premise of psychophysics (Gibson) (the ambient optical array)?
  35. What are the optic and retinal flows? What is their relationship to observer motion?
  36. Describe the various motion detectors within the visual system?
  37. According to Dawkins (Mount Improbable):
  38. According to Goldstein:
  39. What is the kinetic depth effect (KDE)?
  40. What is the premise behind the chapter titles in Hoffman's book? How are they related to forma cohesive notion if visual intelligence/perception?
  41. According to Hoffman, what are the phenomenal and relation worlds?
  42. Hoffman argues that construct what we see? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
  43. The fundamental problem of vision and its implications.
  44. The fundamental problem of seeing depth and its implications.
  45. What is the Rule of Generic Views?
  46. What are subjective contours?
  47. How do we construct what we see?
  48. LGN and Visual Cortex (p. 67-71): high degrees of visual processing
  49. How do "parts" allow us to see?
  50. What is the relationship between figure and ground?
  51. What is the relationship between color and the frequency of light rays?
  52. How are perceived motion and the interstimulus interval related?
  53. Why does our visual system tend towards simplicity and constancy relative to color and motion?
  54. Describe how our visual system is both systematic an arbitrary at the same time.
  55. Why are our perceptions often labeled as a "useful guide" for behavior?
  56. Describe Bertoline's notion of visual sceince.
  57. Make a case for or against visual science as a discipline.
  58. Could computer graphics be considered a discipline? Why or wy not?
  59. What are the component elements of computer graphics (use the terms at the top of this list as a guide)?
  60. Describe the various steps in the hierarchy of visual learning.
  61. Describe the component elements of the hierarchy of visual science
  62. Give some examples of courses or course content that addresses these steps.
  63. How does visual science relate to art, engineering, computer science, and psychology?