Designing the Future: The Computer Transformation of Reality

This book shows the full creative potential of the computer. Packed both with practical applications and new concepts, it demonstrates that computers do not simply perform old tasks more efficiently, but enable us to generate whole new worlds. Robin Baker shows how the computer is potentially the firmest bridge ever built between the two cultures of art and science: once simply a tool for handling abstract symbols, it has engendered - with the advent of VDU technology - the electronic image, and with it a new form of expression. Initially, paint systems and 2-D and 3-D drafting programmes simply transferred traditional methods onto the screen; now our entire visual landscape - from architecture and interior design to film and graphics, from fashion and jewellery to printmaking and industrial design - is being transformed.

Virtual Reality allows 'solid' objects to be viewed from within; shape grammar gives architects the opportunity to recreate any building in an infinite range of forms; neural networks make computers 'see' like humans; rapid prototyping creates an immediate physical model of an electronic design; genetic algorithms provide instant 'generations' of design forms with controlled or uncontrolled mutations; hyperpublishing produces 'personal' magazines or books, created by electronic 'agents' responding to individual needs. Some of these incredible concepts are now actively being used; others lie in the near future. All of them give us a greater capacity for "Designing the Future" than ever before. For the vast audience in the fine and applied arts, in business, in education and in the home for whom the computer has become indispensable, this is essential reading.