Department of Digital Media
Program Feature
The Department of Digital Media Science conducts education and research on information and applied systems that rely on computer and network infrastructure.
Elementary courses provide instruction in computer fundamentals as well as the basics of computer programming required for the advanced study of Information Science and Digital Media. In addition, students receive a solid grounding in the core disciplines of Mathematics and Physics, and acquire the skills needed to write research papers and deliver presentations on their research projects and accomplishments.
The department's mission is to cultivate human resources for service in the digital media field and who will be skilled in the use of various computer systems. The digital media field itself comprises an array of disciplines, including the recognition of computer-input images and patterns, computer graphics (CG), which blends imagery from the real world with images created using computers, and visualization technologies which are used to express computer-generated images in forms that humans can understand.
Among the advanced courses, the Computer Graphics and Visualization course allows students to intensify their focus on areas where computer graphics technology has come into wide use. For example, this course provides opportunities to study ways of adapting computer graphics to art, visualizing blends of imagery from the real and virtual worlds, and finding graphical expressions for mathematical equations. In the Multimedia Recognition course, students study such topics ranging from the recognition of images and audio to communications technologies for the transfer of multimedia data.
The curriculum also includes an information science project that students start in their first year as a means of honing their skills in conceptualization and the recognition and solution of problems, an Education Assistance course that allows students to serve as assistants in high-school computer education programs, a Special Digital Media Seminar that exposes students to the latest papers of relevance to their graduate thesis, and a Digital Media Graduate Thesis course.
Message from Department Chair of Digital Media
Jianhua MA, Professor, Dr.
Department Chair of Digital Media
Welcome to the Department of Digital Media.
You can find various digital media embedded in your life. The internet delivers attractive video pictures and sounds, and car navigation systems tell drivers their precise locations using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and graphically show the directions to their destinations. The Department of Digital Media gives you a chance to learn about such advanced technologies, from their foundations to their applications.
There are some basic questions you may have about these digital media, such as how to record and play hi-fi sounds on portable music players, how to create animations with 3D computer graphics technologies, and how to produce exciting computer games which combine advanced technologies. In order to answer these questions, you need to study many scientific areas, such as basic knowledge of computer and software sciences and basic principles of images and sounds, and you sometimes need to go back and learn more mathematics and physics in order to understand what happens in the real world. We offer a complete range of courses on technologies related to computer graphics, image and sound processing, and multimedia recognition, as well as courses on the foundations of mathematics and physics.
I think the most promising feature of digital media is the creativity they allow. You can create whatever you want by using digital media. You may want to create more realistic CG pictures, design new computer characters with faces and voices, or build new internet services on new mobile devices. Digital media are tools for making it possible for individuals to achieve such dreams.
Digital media technologies are making rapid progress with new ideas and new devices. Your ideas can play a major role in research and development. Please come and join us to learn and create advanced technologies that will improve people's lives.