Design & Visualization

Design software focuses on the digital creation or re-creation of a thing or idea. Types of design range from print media, web site, computational, 3-dimensional, structural, simulation, and more. Simulation and modeling software is closely related and sometimes integrated with design software.

Visualization software includes applications that help visualize concepts, ideas, or scenarios. This includes diagramming, geographical visualization, molecular and structure visualization, graphical data representations, and some animation.

Also included in this category are applications used in presentations. This includes not only Powerpoint and powerpoint style presentations, but live polling software, presentation capture software, and web presentations as well. As well, applications used to create, edit, convert, or touch up digital images. Software ranges from photo editing, photo cataloging, graphic design, and diagramming. Finally there are applications used to edit web pages including code editors, What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editors, and Content Management (CMS) systems that organize and manage web pages on a server.

Photoshop CS6

November 19, 2014 by Andy Voelker
Categories: Design & VisualizationMultimedia

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP LOGO

Availability: CS6 is being replaced by Adobe Creative Cloud
Part of: Adobe Creative Suite
Comparable: GIMP

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems for Windows and OS X.

Photoshop has become the de facto industry standard in raster graphics editing, such that the terms “photoshopping” and “photoshop contest” were born. It can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and several color models including RGB, CMYK, Lab color space (with capital L), spot color and duotone. Photoshop has vast support for graphic file formats but also uses its own PSD and PSB file formats which support all the aforementioned features. In addition to raster graphics, it has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics (especially through clipping path), 3D graphics and video. Photoshop’s featureset can be expanded by Photoshop plug-ins, programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that can run inside it and offer new or enhanced features.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 is being replaced by Adobe Photoshop CC.

Tags: creative suiteimageraster

Picasa

December 19, 2013 by clas-web
Categories: Design & VisualizationMultimedia

picasa-logo

Availability: Labs  |  Download
Comparable: Aperture, iPhoto, Lightroom

Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos.  It includes touch up and basic editing tools, geo-tagging to tie a picture to a location, facial recognition to categorize and catalog photos by the people in them, backup capabilities to safeguard your photos, and sharing capabilities to display your photos publicly or send them to targeted peers.

Tags: phototrm

Powerpoint

February 19, 2015 by Andy Voelker
Categories: Design & VisualizationProductivity & Utility

239091_567_powerpoint2013

Availability: Labs | Faculty/Staff | Download
Part of: Microsoft Office Suite
Comparable: Google Apps, OpenOffice, Prezi, Sway, Keynote

Microsoft Powerpoint is slide show presentation software.  The user develops slides with text, graphics, charts, animations, videos, sounds, and other multimedia content to display during a presentation.  The slides proceed in a linear fashion either at a timed pace or according to the user prompt.  Slides can then be exported to pictures, PDF documents, videos, or web pages.  Powerpoint is available on the MacOS and Windows platforms.

Powerpoint has also been used for basic graphic design, flow charting, and digital signage.  Though other tools are often more appropriate for this kind of function, a user can save time by using a tool they are thoroughly proficient in.  For other tools proficient in these functions see GIMP, Inkscape, or Dia.