University of Delaware Office of Public Relations The Messenger Vol. 5, No. 2/1996 Multimedia modeling comes to Evans Hall Electrical engineering and computer science students at the University now have access to the same state-of-the-art equipment that made that famous silver slime, the evil T-1000, come to life in Terminator II: Judgment Day. A new, multimedia teaching lab, with computers donated by Silicon Graphics Inc., is operating for the first time this spring in Evans Hall on the Newark campus. Silicon Graphics, a leader in industrial computer graphics and image-work, makes equipment used for, among many other things, creating special effects, such as those for Terminator II. Kurt B. Akeley, Delaware '80, vice president and chief engineer of the visual systems group at Silicon Graphics, arranged the donation of 12 multimedia INDY workstations, which retail for about $20,000 each, to his alma mater. In all, the lab contains almost $400,000 worth of equipment. Each workstation in the lab is equipped with a video camera and microphone and all are linked so they are able to transmit images back and forth. Classes that use the lab will work on video conferencing, as well as experiments in image and video processing, Charles Boncelet Jr., professor of electrical engineering, explains. David B. Saunders, associate professor of computer and information sciences, who teaches a computer graphics class in the lab, says he is excited about the Silicon Graphics library that comes with each workstation and about the equipment's ability to help students create three-dimensional models. "Seniors and graduate students taking the course will be able to create a model and manipulate it many ways," Saunders says. "They can zoom in on it, shift its position, rotate it, see how light and texture affect it, add color and animation. It's quite a boost to our program." -Beth Thomas