freaking awesome class: computational photography

[evan]

Just wanted to share this description:

This course provides an introduction to computational photography. Computational photography aims to improve digital photography technologies to better meet the needs of photographers. This course will provide students with an introduction to computational photography, including: the practice of photography as a way of understanding the needs of the photographer; the nature, strengths, and weaknesses of current digital photography technologies; and emerging ideas in computational photography. The class will emphasize key data representations and transformations and their use in photographic work flows. Students will regularly produce both software artifacts and technically and aesthetically competent photographs.

and this email from the professor:

I try to ground the technical aspects of the course in an appreciation for the needs of the practicing photographer, and I don't think one can understand those needs without becoming a bit of a photographer, so the course does both--art and science. You'll have regular exercises taking photographs, "developing" them using Photoshop, and in studying (and programming) the underlying technology.

i can't WAIT UNTIL NEXT FALL. holy crap, gonna be sweet. I actually get to take a class in photography without any drawing prereqs (as our art dept. requires :( ) :cool:

oh yeah, and it counts towards my COMPUTER SCIENCE major. I don't think I could have asked for a more awesome class. seriously. except for "iPhone/iPad development and startups." But i'm taking the next best thing: Web Information Systems Engineering. boring name but awesome class:

With advances in Internet and World Wide Web technologies, research on
the design, implementation and management of web-based information
systems has become increasingly important. In this course, we will look
at the systematic and disciplined creation of web-based software
systems. Students will be expected to work in teams on projects
involving mobile devices and web applications.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will:

1. Possess an understanding of the nature of web applications;
2. Understand Service-Oriented Architecture and can implement SOA in
a project;
3. Be able to design a software architecture for a web service;
4. Be able to design, implement, and maintain a web application;
5. Have a good understanding of PHP, XML, and C#;
6. Have created a handful of web applications, some geared
specifically to mobile devices; and,
7. Be able to understand and setup a LAMP-type server.

that's just the generic description: for next semester the professor got 30 free Droids for teaching and that'll be our primary platform (with iPhones optional, but I will 100% choose to keep in mind while developing :) )


I'm SOOOOOOO pumped for next semester.

so when can I stop programming in assembly (for those of you paying attention to programmers nook) and start this stuff? :)

[evan]

Legitimate question: should I get a camera now or wait until august? Will there be any new models out by then? Otherwise I'd prefer to get the camera now and take pictures all summer

[PB PM]

What brand of camera are looking to buy? Are you looking at an entry level camera, or something higher end? It would be impossible to answer your question without these questions answered.

[Maciej]

Wow. That is a pretty sweet class, I'm kind of jealous.

[evan]

entry level DSLR for sure, sorry for not specifying!

[PB PM]

Canon and Pentax just updated their entry level modes earlier this year, and Nikon updated theirs last year so there most likely wont be any updates before August.