A study of temporal visual composition

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-182).With the rapid growth of digital art, the temporal dimension is becoming a more and more important aspect of visual creations. This thesis is an effort to contribute to the construction of a disciplined basis for the composition of visual creations along the temporal dimension. It studies new perceptual phenomena and compositional issues introduced by temporal visual composition; it proposes and develops a set theory-based composition approach; it also presents the applications of this approach in compositional experiments at different levels of abstraction. As another aspect of contributing to the temporal visual composition research, this thesis designs and develops a temporal visual composition interface and a system for color generation and manipulation based on spectral information. This interface and system serve as an indispensable support for the composition experiments in this study. They also present to artists a new level of control over both graphical materials and the composition process. Furthermore, they suggest new creative potentials in temporal art.by Xiaohua Sun.Ph.D

Using space to think

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-67).This thesis is proposing a research direction of using computation to help people fully take advantage of spatial cognition in thinking process. As our most important form of information processing spatial cognition provides thinking what logical and verbal means are inferior at. But without external aid, its application is tremendously constrained. Computation could play a role in circumventing those constraints and bridging out the strength of spatial cognition in thinking process. This could augment our of thinking ability and reform our mind.by Xiaohua Sun.S.M