COGGRAPH: Building bridges between cognitive science and computer graphics
Abstract
In recent years, the field of computer graphics has achieved its longstanding dream of photorealism: modern graphics algorithms produce images that are indistinguishable from reality. Much like art at the advent of photography, then, computer graphics is now turning its gaze to the beholder: researchers are increasingly looking to cognitive science to engineer new modes of visual expression. Recent work has sought to apply insights from cognitive science to a variety of traditional graphics topics: from taking a perceptual approach to perspective, to studying the theory of mind behind animation, to applying theories of abstraction learning to build tools for geometry processing. At the same time, a wave of recent work in cognitive science has addressed fundamental questions about visual expression: for example, how humans understand and create sketches, shapes, and symbols. The field has also benefited greatly from tools and methods from computer graphics: differentiable rendering, physics simulation, and game engines have become indispensable in modeling human perception and intuitive physics. Recognizing this growing interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, we are proposing a workshop to begin building formal bridges between the cognitive science and computer graphics communities.