Graphics Literacy Education at the University of Tokyo

Graphic science is the subject which teaches geometry and graphics, and is taught in early undergraduate curricula at many Japanese universities. In traditional graphic science courses, descriptive geometry based on hand drawings was taught. However, in recent years, there continues to be a rapid spread in the use of 3D-CAD in the field of design and drawing, and there is also increasing use of CG in many fields such as for visualization of computer simulation results in science, and for image display in the movie and game entertainment fields. With the spread of 3D-CAD/CG, graphic presentation is now being used in various fields and by various people, so there is a need for graphic presentation education including the competence in the use of 3D-CAD/CG, or graphics literacy (or visual literacy) education for a wide range of students. In order to realize graphics literacy education, a new graphic science curriculum has been started at the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tokyo. The main part of the curriculum consists of Graphic Science I and Graphic Science II. With Graphic Science I, as before, traditional descriptive geometry is taught with hand drawing. With Graphic Science II, commercial 3D-CAD/CG software can be experienced. The educational objective of this course is not only to teach how to use 3D-CAD/CG software but also to teach geometry and graphics through the use of 3D-CAD/CG. It is designed to mutually complement with descriptive geometry education (Graphic Science I).