The science of shape: revolutionizing graphics and vision with the third dimension

Almost any popular computer game that has been released recently draws complex three-dimensional figures as part of ordinary game play. From Warcraft's moving figures to the complex but less mobile realism of Riven or Uru, computer games display and produce shapes on the fly depending on user input. Often, the more realistic (and more complicated) the shapes, the more believable the game. For that reason, significant research has focused on the science of shape, from its generation, to its visualization and analysis.