Contact: Maridith Geuder
To edit video images of a research project in Mexico, Mississippi State University graduate student Alan Jones doesn't head for a television studio.
Instead, he drops by a new Giles Hall laboratory and uses a School of Architecture computer to create reconstructions of one of the country's largest Maya Indian ruins. The Starkville resident is enrolled in architecture's master's degree program in applied visualization.
Developing high-end computer images is part of Jones' work as a research assistant in the school's Digital Research and Imaging Laboratory. The work also supports his graduate thesis dealing with computer technologies and archaeological reconstructions.
Created five years ago, the visualization degree is a research-based curriculum that teaches students to conceptualize ideas in three dimensions. Among the newest lab tools are video editing stations that allow students to apply industry-standard software to their research.
"Our students work with the same equipment that CNN (Cable News Network) uses to produce its television news," said laboratory director Charles Calvo. "They can import video into a computer and edit digitally."
The visualization skills are preparing students for a range of careers, including industry, fine arts, educational technology, architecture, and archaeology.
The program's first graduate, Wendy J. Allen, went to work as an online video editor at Atlanta-based CNN, where she created web pages to deliver network news for the Internet. Recently, the December 1998 graduate from Evansville, Ind., accepted a new position in the post-production department of Turner Productions, the network's parent company.
"Mississippi State gave me knowledge and exposure to digital technology that have allowed me to be effective in my work and to develop and contribute my own ideas," Allen said. "I learned how to use the most innovative software tools and learned common principles and how the computer thinks. I was ready for the CNN job."
Like the visualization degree program, the video suite is an interdisciplinary partnership among architecture and several other MSU units, including the department of art, University Television Center, and Center for Educational and Technology Training.
"By sharing resources and students, we are able to expand opportunities for collaboration," Calvo said.
In another lab project, students are applying visualization tools to help a central Mississippi town develop strategies for municipal revitalization. They are using computer models to track how pedestrian and vehicle traffic actually moves through the community.
"With the animation and video technologies available in the lab, they are able to study what gives the town its character," Calvo explained. "This is important for any effort to preserve, restore or revitalize the town and retain its charm."
Students also are developing interactive visualization resources to support K-12 education in oceanography and coastal processes, and are continuing work on a project with the Smithsonian Institution to deliver virtual museum objects by Internet to school children.
"There are many applications of this technology for the World Wide Web and for distance learning," Calvo said.