New Perspectives in Science Education

Visualizing scientific data can be an invaluable aid to the researcher. Each user interacts differently with the presented data. When visualizing certain results, it is very important to take into account the human factor.

The evolution of data representation can be traced back centuries, starting with Da Vinci's drawings, his students' drawings, and so on. With the development of visualization, different branches of geometry develop. Over the last 40 years, differential and descriptive geometry have made great progress in this area. Discoveries were made that radically changed the mathematical description of curves and surfaces.

In the 1980s, the visualization of three-dimensional objects was done with the help of mathematical models. With the development of computers came the need for realism. For this reason, several different disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science had to be combined and a new discipline appeared - computer graphics.

It is inherently interdisciplinary. The share of computer science is very large, but without physics we will never be able to achieve realism and images close to the real ones. The initial process of creating complex three-dimensional primitives is called modeling. It can be done in two ways: by mathematical description or artificially - photogrammetry or laser scanning. The next step is to apply a texture or material. We "put" a shell on our three-dimensional object. It has certain physical properties such as transparency, light absorption coefficient, diffusion coefficient, etc. Each of these elements determines the color of the primitive, whether or not it will cast a shadow in the world coordinate system.

The purpose of this report is to present our experience in teaching computer graphics at both universities -  University of Library Studies and Information Technologies and South-West University "Neofit Rilski".

The general concept we use in this article is the application of 3D models in research and the ways of presenting them in an accessible and realistic way. We will briefly present two surveys and their results on the place of computer graphics in education.  The survey was conducted among students studying computer science and social sciences. The main conclusion is that students are open to the application of three-dimensional technologies in education.

In the present study, we will show different ways and models for creating and visualizing 3D objects and complex primitives. A short description will be presented to create a complex primitive and ways to visualize it. We will give a brief overview of the main disciplines related to computer graphics, which are taught at both universities. We will make a brief analysis of the advantages and disadvantages.