Multimedia Graphics - A Spellbinding Arena

Introduction

Multimedia graphics refers to media, primarily, visual in nature, typically stored, transmitted and displayed electronically such as computer generated images or motion graphics. Multimedia graphics may refer to a wide compendium of media, such as digital art, digital photography, renderings of 3D models, both in real time as found in games as well as pre-rendered images, special effects simulations, computer generated motion pictures, or digitally captured live action movies.

Usage and Application

Multimedia graphics has several applications, we encounter it being used in several industries, some of which I list below.

Entertainment Industry

The most conspicuous use of multimedia graphics, is in the entertainment industry. Most of the movies produced today, be they live action footage, or computer generated animation, are digital in nature, and make extensive use of multimedia graphical tools for their production. Even in live action movies, digitally generated graphics is used to enhance the visual experience using spectacular computer generated special effects.

Advertisement

Another area we commonly encounter digital multimedia graphics is advertising. Agencies use both print advertisements and motion graphics that are generated by digital artists, to promote their product. Even print advertisements, despite being on physical paper or billboards, are created using digital tools.

Journalism

Newspapers use digital graphics, in the form of photographs used in their articles, or digitally generated info-graphics. With the advent of digital delivery of news and journals, newspapers use more interactive or animated digital graphics to deliver news content to the readers of their online editions.

Engineering

Multimedia graphics generated by use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools, are used extensively in the engineering industry to visualize engineering models and structures in 3D, as well as to produce digital versions of 2D traditional engineering diagrams.

Scientific Research

Multimedia Graphics find extensive use in the research industry to visualize new concepts and complex simulations. The recent motion graphics simulations of the 'god-particle' emanating from researchers at CERN are a typical example of such an application of digitally generated multimedia graphics.

Creation of Multimedia Graphics

Generation of digital graphics, primarily, involves the use of digital software by digital artists. Highly specialized and industry specific content creation software are available in the market. At the broadest level, multimedia graphics, can be classified into 2D graphics 3D graphics.

2D Graphics Tools

2D graphics tools, produce graphics that do not involve manipulation of the dimension of depth. Photo editing, abstract digital art, movie editing, are all examples of 2D graphics. 2D graphics may further be classified into raster and vector graphics.

Raster Graphics: By far the most ubiquitous form any multimedia graphic, raster graphics refers to the representation of an image, also called a bitmap, in the form of a rectangular matrix or grid of colored squares, or pixels. Most digital graphics are represented this way, be it a single image, or a collection of fast moving images as in a movie. Examples of raster graphics tools are movie editing software like Adobe Premier and photo or image editing software such as Photoshop.

Vector Graphics: Vector graphics employ geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves and polygons to represent 2D imagery. It is based on the drawing mathematical paths, curves and strokes, through control points. By manipulating these control points and the nature of the lines or strokes connecting them, intricate 2D imagery can be produced. Engineering software like AutoCAD, and artistic tools such as CorelDraw are examples of 2D vector graphics tools. Note that once completed, vector graphics tools typically allow them to be 'rendered' or converted to raster graphic images.

3D Graphics

3D graphics involves the additional dimension of depth, used for engineering, scientific and architectural visualizations, 3D computer games, and computer generated 3D animation movies. Solid modeling engineering tool ProE, architectural design tools like Google Sketchup, and 3D modeling and animation software 3DSMax, are examples of some of the most commonly used 3D graphics tools.