Understanding Images: Finding Meaning in Digital Imagery

The explosive use of computers as visualization and expression tools presents significant new challenges to all communicators. The Conference on Understanding Images was organized specifically to bring together artists, designers, psychologists, scientists, engineers and philosophers, in order to discuss the fundamental paradigms for image understanding within an electronic context. Sponsored by NYC ACM/SIGGRAPH and Pace University School of Computer Science and Information Systems, twenty-one speakers from the United States and Europe presented seventeen lectures covering psychology and perception, image analysis and understanding, user interface design, text organization and iconography, sound and philosophy with applications in multimedia, computer visualization, and virtual reality. Individually, these presentations pinpoint interesting and complex issues confronting researchers and practitioners, alike. As a whole, they define the problem domain and future solution strategies.