DANBURY, CONN. — For the past six years, Western Connecticut State University has shared the pioneering innovations of computer animation in a public festival that each spring attracts participants from around the nation to learn the latest graphics applications and celebrate the exuberant artistic creativity of animated film shorts.

In April the WCSU Center for Graphics Research (CGR) will take its seventh annual festival, AniFest ’08, to the next level, staging an expanded five-day program that seeks to extend its teaching outreach to schools throughout the Greater Danbury area.

CGR Director and Professor of Computer Science Dr. William Joel observed the festival from April 21 through 25 will retain all of the features that have contributed to its success as a forum for exchange of ideas and information on graphics applications, and as a showplace for original animation shorts created and produced by students at WestConn and other colleges nationwide.

The festival schedule will be extended to five days, from three days previously, to accommodate the addition of AniFest workshops designed to provide middle and high school teachers with a broad range of information about how graphics and animation tools can be applied in the classroom and inspire artistic creativity.

“These daylong workshops will cover all areas of animation — acting for animation, the mathematics of animation, story development, graphic techniques and other areas,” Joel said. “It’s more than just teaching, it’s about the other elements of animation as well.”

The first three days of AniFest ’08 from April 21 to 23 will feature continuous showings of shorts from the festival’s computer animation competition, which has grown each year in popularity and participation by student animators at colleges across the United States. Other festival events will include an evening talk on animation art and techniques by a representative of BlueSky Studio and an “Art of Animation” exhibition in the Student Center displaying posters, art works and other presentations by student animators.

“Every year it’s been better and better,” Joel said. “Last year the student competition drew three to four times as many submissions as the previous year. The students’ animation shorts play continuously throughout the day in the Student Center Theater, and you may visit anytime during the festival to enjoy them.”

Admission to all AniFest ’08 programs will be free and the public is invited. Pre-registrations are required for the teacher workshops; information is available online at http://cs.wcsu.edu/cgr/festival08 or by email request to Joel at joelw@wcsu.edu.

AniFest ’08 represents one element of CGR’s expanding scope in the development of instruction and research in computer graphics and animation. Now in its fourth year as an independent center, CGR seeks “to provide students and faculty with opportunities to explore, learn, research and appreciate” the steadily advancing sophistication and applications of these technological tools, from the arts to the workplace.

CGR has reached out to the private sector to discuss opportunities for collaboration patterned on the center’s current relationship with BlueSky, which makes staff members available to serve as mentors to WestConn students affiliated with the center. CGR grants enable several students majoring in computer science or the visual arts each year to attend the national conference of the Association for Computer Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics.

The quality of WestConn student research in computer graphics has received recognition from specialists in the field. In August 2007, WCSU computer science student Michael Huizinga earned an invitation to exhibit his research project, “Delayed Feedback in a Chinese Brush Painting Animation,” at the annual Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering international symposium in San Diego. Joel has been invited to return this summer for a second year as a visiting instructor in computer animation at the University of Paderborn in Germany, and currently is collaborating with students at WestConn and Paderborn on a research paper that will be submitted at a conference later this year.

Another CGR initiative to reach out to the general community will be the center’s first Summer Computer Animation Camp from Aug. 3 through 8, offering a comprehensive introductory program for middle school students from grades 6 through 8. Classes will be taught on the university’s Westside campus by WestConn faculty and guest lecturers. The registration fee of $850 for participants including dorm accommodations on campus, or $650 for commuting students, will cover the full cost of instruction, books and notebooks, meals and other materials. Registration information and forms are available online at http://cs.wcsu.edu/cgr/camp.

“It will be a full week where you can learn everything there is to learn about computer animation,” Joel said. “We’ll offer classes, workshops and labs during the day, guest speakers in the evenings, and animation showings complete with popcorn.” 

CGR’s primary focus remains on the growing number of WestConn students — primarily computer science and arts majors, but open to all academic disciplines — who participate in the center’s teaching and research programs.

“What we want to do is to help the students in our program realize that computer animation and graphics can be a valuable tool within their career paths,” Joel explained. “Animation doesn’t necessarily have to be their career path. If it simply helps them to think independently and enjoy the research that they do here as an important part of their educational experience, that’s enough.”