Computer graphics is being used to an increasing extent in the biological disciplines. As hardware costs drop and technological developments intro duce new graphics possibilities, researchers and teachers alike are becoming aware of the value of visual display methods. In this book we introduce the basics of computer graphics from the standpoints of both hardware and software, and review the main areas within biology to which computer graphics have been applied. The com puter graphics literature is vast, and we have not been able to give a full course on graphics techniques in these pages. We have instead tried to give a fairly balanced account of the use of graphics in biology, suitable for the reader with some elementary grounding in computer programming. We have included extensive references both to material cited in the text and to other relevant publications. One of the factors that has fuelled the increase in graphics use is the ease with which the more simple graphics techniques may be implemented on microcomputers. We hav.e, therefore, paid attention to microcomputer graphics as well as graphics techniques suitable for larger machines. Our examples range from simple two-dimensional graph plots to highly complex surface representations of molecules that require sophisticated graphics devices and mainframe computers on which to run. The book is separated into two logical sections. The first part con centrates on general graphics techniques, giving an overview from which the reader will be able to refer to other more specialised texts as required.

Computer Graphics Tokyo, now in its fourth year, has established a world-wide reputation as an international technical conference, presenting work of high quality in the field of computer graphics. Each conference has been attended by a couple of thousand partiCipants from all over the world and tens of thousands have visited the exhibition. After strict peer review, 34 papers were accepted this year, of which about 40% were from the USA, 30% from Japan, 20% from Europe, and 10% from Canada. A good balance of papers on advanced research results, industrial/marketing surveys, and computer art technology has made Computer Graphics Tokyo an indispensable forum for researchers, engineers, and administrators working in this field. Computer graphics is a rapidly developing and expanding area and it is not easy to keep abreast of all the progress that has been made. This volume contains the proceedings of Computer Graphics Tokyo '86 and provides the reader with a comprehensive survey of the state of the art in computer graphics. Computational geometry (Chapter 1) is one of the fastest growing areas in computer graphics. This is well recognized as the basis of shape modeling. After shapes are modeled, they are displayed for visual observation. Chapter 2 on rendering presents various novel methods and technological innovations for visualizing shapes. To make display systems more acces sible to users, rich visual interfaces and languages are being designed, as shown in Chapter 3. Visual data bases for sharing graphics-and image-data are handled in Chapter 4.

Applications of microcomputer graphics. Display generation basics. Working with display generation hardware. An introduction to peripheral graphics devices. Interactive design elements and intelligence. Design and simulation system interaction. Mathematics and transforms for advanced graphics. High-performance graphics and animation. Business graphics. Foreign and domestic television data. Graphics on the Apple II microcomputer. Graphics on the IBM personal computer.