Mississippi State joins list of international training sites for Silicon Graphics

Mississippi State is the only location chosen in the South. The new center, called IMAGE WORKS: Vision by Design, is housed at the university's National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center.

Establishment of IMAGE WORKS is a "singular opportunity for Mississippi," said Dr. Joe Thompson, director of the Engineering Research Center. "It will give the state national exposure as industry representatives come to Starkville to be trained in using the same high-end computer software that is used for television commercials and for films.

"We are hopeful that this will be the beginning of a software industry in our state."

Mississippi State students at the center may work through cooperative arrangements with business and industry while they study. One student is building parts of an interactive video game for a manufacturer in Hawaii. He is designing and animating birds and insects.

In addition, IMAGE WORKS and the ERC will create a gallery exhibit on "How Airplanes Fly" in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. It will open in 1996.

"All of this is possible because of our top-level computer graphics equipment," Thompson said. "No art department or architecture school in the country can afford such an investment. But these academic areas have worked closely with the ERC and the facilities have been made available to their students. Mississippi now has the best equipped computer-based art program and computer-based architecture program in the country."

The concept of a training center was initiated by Silicon Graphics to provide an integrated solution to computer software issues in the fields of video, publication and presentation media graphics, said Patty Seger, ERC art director and director of IMAGE WORKS.

"It will allow professionals from business and industry to get tooled with the skills that visualization technology can provide," Seger said.

Students trained in computer animations at the ERC already are making their mark, she said. One has been hired by Boss Film Studios in Marino del Rey, Calif., and worked on commercials for the Super Bowl. Another was hired by Pacific Data Images in Hollywood and is working on special effects for a TV series.

Established in 1990, the NSF Engineering Research Center is one of 18 in the nation. It is the only center focusing on high-performance computing. Work at the ERC involves researchers from engineering, mathematics, physics, computer science, art, and architecture.

Using high-performance Silicon Graphics work stations and a variety of sophisticated software, the ERC has developed specialties in computer animations, industrial design, interactive dataware, scientific visualization and virtual environments, and computer applications for art and architecture. These areas will be highlighted in week-long courses offered at IMAGE WORKS beginning in June.

Many courses will be taught by instructors from software vendors, Seger said. "Because of this connection, there is great potential to attract software companies to the state."

Other Silicon Graphics training centers are at The American Film Institute, Los Angeles; the Academy of Art College, San Francisco; the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena; the Image Factory of Amsterdam, the Netherlands; the Santa Fe Film Workshops, Santa Fe, N.M ; the Information Technology Design Centre, Toronto, Canada; and the Center for Creative Imaging, Camden, Maine.