Elodie Fourquet

Colgate
Assistant Professor
Computer Science
Profile Photo
efourquet    colgate.edu
Office
MCGREG 309
(tel) 315.228.6033
(fax) 315.228.7009
Mailing Address
Elodie Fourquet
McGregory Hall, 3rd Floor
Colgate University
13 Oak Drive
Hamilton, NY 13346

Research

My research in computer graphics is composed of three themes.
  1. How the practice of artists interacts with computer graphics: 2D projective geometry.
  2. How vision research can help to improve computer graphics.
  3. How best students learn the fundamental ideas of computer science: the transfer of abstraction, students use while drawing but may find harder to use in problem solving for science.

Artistic Practice

Since my graduate work I investigate the interaction between two and three dimensions in the process of depicting the world on an image. Specifically, I studied how perspective was used in Renaissance painting and how it was integrated with strong image plane composition techniques. From those learnings and a formalism, I built a program that relies on those artistic practices.

  • The Tiled Floor in Perspective: From the Geometric Line Constructions of the Renaissance to the Projective Matrices of Computer Graphics. Elodie Fourquet and Stephen Mann. Forthcoming in the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, Taylor and Francis.
  • Perspective in Two Dimensions for Computer Graphics , Elodie Fourquet. Ph.D. Dissertation, (2012).
  • Learning about shadows from artists. Elodie Fourquet. In Proceedings of Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization and Imaging, 107-114, (2010).

Vision & Computer Graphics

To explore the perceptual insights made by artists, one of my current research project is on the representation of depth in 2D images, combining the methods of computer graphics and experimental psychology. The aims of this project are to improve the quality of 2D digital imagery and to enhance our understanding of the many depth cues that interplay to support human perception of 3D. This project is funded by a Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute grant titled, Representing and Perceiving Depth in Digital Images with collaborator Flip Phillips, Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Skidmore College.

Learning Code Abstraction

I am very interested about the process of learning abstraction and how we can teach across the fields. Abstraction is known to be fundamental for mastery in mathematics, is taken from this scientific source and often granted when we teach introductory computer science concepts. However, abstraction is key to any problem solving process in the sciences and in arts. From my experience teaching in the liberal arts setting, as many computer science educators, I believe there are many pathways to mastery in coding. In particular, it is enlightening when students create abstraction with ease, maybe in art, gain confidence while planning and designing computer science solution. Good use of abstraction in code demands practice and experience developing complex programs and learning from making design mistake at first. I learn teaching and observing my students learning. See their results in the Galleries below.

Other Selected Publications


Research Students' Work

Blogs Posters

For more check my Graduate School Research page



Teaching

Fall 2018    Forthcoming!

FSEM 131  
From Paintings to Pixels       (To Be Updated)
Project Gallery   
Check students' work in this class
S14 Gallery   
Offering at Mount Holyoke College

COSC 102A  
Introduction to Computing II

Spring 2018

COSC 435 A  
Computer Graphics
Gallery

Other Courses I thaught

COSC 101A  
Introduction to Computing I

S14 COMSC-341  
Topic: User Interfaces       (Mount Holyoke College)

F13 COMSC-322  
Operating Systems           (Mount Holyoke College)

Graduate School Teaching page...