EVERYTHING ABOUT ALL

Microphones are now important input devices, and speakers and their associated technologies
are key output systems. Today, nearly any new multimedia-capable PC includes a complete
sound system, with a microphone, speakers, a sound card, and a CD-ROM or DVD drive. Sound
systems are especially useful to people who use their computer to create or use multimedia
products, watch videos or listen to music, or participate in online activities such as
videoconferences or distance learning.


The speakers attached to these systems are similar to those you connect to a stereo. The
only difference is that they are usually smaller and may contain their own amplifiers. Other
wise, they do the same thing any speaker does: They transfer a constantly changing electric
current to a magnet, which pushes the speaker cone back and forth. The moving speaker cone
creates pressure vibrations in the air-in other words, sound.

You are constantly exposed to elaborate 3-D imaging in movies, television, and print.
Many of these images are now created with a special type of graphics software, called                     
3-D modeling software. Fast workstations or PCs coupled with 3-D modeling programs
can lend realism to even the most fantastic subjects.


Digital 3-D objects can be modified to any shape using electronic tools much like those
used in woodworking. Three dimensional objects also can be given realistic textures and
patterns or they can be animated or made to fly through space. An outgrowth of the 3-D
explosion is computer-based animation. Since the creation of filmmaking, animation was
possible only through a painstaking process of hand-drawing a series of images and then
filming them one by one. Each filmed image is called a frame.


Computer-generated imaging (CGI) has changed the world of animation in many ways. Although
computer animation works on the same principles as traditional animation computer animators
now have highly sophisticated tools that take the drudgery out of the animation process
and allow them to create animation more quickly than ever. Computer animators also have the
advantage of bieng able to display their animation on the computer screen or output them to
CD-ROM, videotape, or film. An added bonus of computer animation is the ability to animate
three-dimensional characters and create photorealistic scenes.