A survey of comics research in computer science

Graphical novels such as comics and mangas are well known all over the world. The digital transition started to change the way people are reading comics, more and more on smartphones and tablets and less and less on paper. In the recent years, a wide variety of research about comics has been proposed and might change the way comics are created, distributed and read in future years. Early work focuses on low level document image analysis: indeed comic books are complex, they contains text, drawings, balloon, panels, onomatopoeia, etc. Different fields of computer science covered research about user interaction and content generation such as multimedia, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, etc. with different sets of values. We propose in this paper to review the previous research about comics in computer science, to state what have been done and to give some insights about the main outlooks

Exploring digital comics as an edutainment tool: An overview

This paper aims t oexplore the growing potential of digital comics and graphic novels as an edutainment tool.Initially, the evolvement of comics medium along with academic and commercial initiatives in designing comicware systems arebriefly discussed. Prominent to this study, the methods and impact of utilizing this visual media with embedded instructional content and student-generated comics in classroom setting are rationallyoutlined.By recognizing the emerging technologies available for supporting and accelerating educational comic development, this article addresses the diverse research challenges and opportunities of innovating effective strategies to enhance comics integrated learning across disciplines

Generative comics: a character evolution approach for creating fictional comics

Comics can be a suitable form of representation for generative narrative. This paper provides an argument for this based on an analysis of properties of the comics medium, and describes a tool for character design and comic strip creation that applies interactive evolution methods to characters in a virtual environment. The system is used to interactively create artificial characters with extreme personality traits inspired by well-known comics characters

Techniques for augmenting the visualisation of dynamic raster surfaces

Despite their aesthetic appeal and condensed nature, dynamic raster surface representations such as a temporal series of a landform and an attribute series of a socio-economic attribute of an area, are often criticised for the lack of an effective information delivery and interactivity.In this work, we readdress some of the earlier raised reasons for these limitations -information-laden quality of surface datasets, lack of spatial and temporal continuity in the original data, and a limited scope for a real-time interactivity. We demonstrate with examples that the use of four techniques namely the re-expression of the surfaces as a framework of morphometric features, spatial generalisation, morphing, graphic lag and brushing can augment the visualisation of dynamic raster surfaces in temporal and attribute series

Visual Displays of Information: A Conceptual Taxonomy

This paper creates a taxonomic model for visual information displays looking at three levels: information design (based on Edward Tufte’s work), information architecture, and information spaces. Special attention is paid to the use of spatial and navigational metaphors in visual systems as they affect the user’s experience. Especially interesting is how a user creates an “information space” – a mental model of what he has seen, how she keeps track of where she is within a system, and how these activities fit together with the data that is being sought. Mathematics is one area that holds promise for better understanding how people visualize information spaces. Vague terms like space, shape, and distance (all implied by the navigation metaphor) have far more refined conceptualizations within mathematics. By harnessing the descriptive powers of mathematics, we can more aptly describe and understand the process of metaphor creation. Secondly, studying comic books and how they are read (McCloud 1993) holds much promise for understanding how people navigate electronic systems. Comics are 2-D sequentially arranged (or at least juxtaposed) combinations of images and text, much like computer screens. People used to reading such visual constructions are better able to navigate through complex information systems. Finally, the use of spatial or navigational metaphors necessarily implies a temporal dimension as well, which leads to certain subtle, but important differences when comparing navigationthrough electronic environments as opposed to real world ones

X10 Comics: Reimagining the Sequential Narrative

At its core a comic book is a narrative told using a sequence of images or a sequential art narrative. There are a number of conventions, established early in the history of comics, which make the comic panel format a powerful tool for visual communication. My thesis project examines these conventions and attempt to distinguish which ones are results of the unique nature of sequential art and which began as a byproduct of technological limitations. By doing so my goal is to take advantage of current technology by creating a new comic book format that integrates digital media while celebrating the comic book as a sequential art narrative

Geospatial big data and cartography : research challenges and opportunities for making maps that matter

Geospatial big data present a new set of challenges and opportunities for cartographic researchers in technical, methodological, and artistic realms. New computational and technical paradigms for cartography are accompanying the rise of geospatial big data. Additionally, the art and science of cartography needs to focus its contemporary efforts on work that connects to outside disciplines and is grounded in problems that are important to humankind and its sustainability. Following the development of position papers and a collaborative workshop to craft consensus around key topics, this article presents a new cartographic research agenda focused on making maps that matter using geospatial big data. This agenda provides both long-term challenges that require significant attention as well as short-term opportunities that we believe could be addressed in more concentrated studies.PostprintPeer reviewe

Sources of Computer Metaphors for Visualization and Human-Computer Interaction

This chapter is devoted to finding sources for metaphors of computer visualization and human-computer interaction. Computer metaphor is considered the basic idea for the development of interfaces, visualization views, and scenarios of visualization and interaction. Global metaphors map the main design idea. These ideas depend on global events and changes in society, art, and science. In the “pre-computer” era, such ideas formed the basics of cartography, engineering drawings, and drawing function graphs on the Cartesian plane. When designing visualization and interactive systems, computer metaphors use “magic features” beside analogies with daily life. Nowadays ideas of visualization are often based on “gamification.” This approach presupposes creating tools that provide software engineers with an interface similar to that of computer games. In this chapter, ideas drawn upon fairy tales, science fiction books, fantasy films, and other similar spheres are considered as sources of computer metaphors. Such metaphors are very interesting when designing visualization systems based on virtual reality

The Line of Action: an Intuitive Interface for Expressive Character Posing

International audienceThe line of action is a conceptual tool often used by cartoonists and illustrators to help make their figures more consistent and more dramatic. We often see the expression of characters--may it be the dynamism of a super hero, or the elegance of a fashion model--well captured and amplified by a single aesthetic line. Usually this line is laid down in early stages of the drawing and used to describe the body's principal shape. By focusing on this simple abstraction, the person drawing can quickly adjust and refine the overall pose of his or her character from a given viewpoint. In this paper, we propose a mathematical definition of the line of action (LOA), which allows us to automatically align a 3D virtual character to a user specified LOA by solving an optimization problem. We generalize this framework to other types of lines found in the drawing literature, such as secondary lines used to place arms. Finally, we show a wide range of poses and animations that were rapidly created using our system