A finalist in computer visualisation and animation, Aldersley says she was in awe when she saw Avatar: "I kept thinking about how many hours it would have taken to make individual shots, and about all the Bournemouth grads who were involved in making it.
Noting that two of the finalists were computer games, he said, "A game engine doesn't change the way I experience art, even when there is a clever interface".
For the new Net Vision prize, the finalists are two computer games and a cell-phone message system.
In addition to presenting their designs through conventional architectural drawings and models, the finalists used sophisticated computer animation to show what the memorials might look like as visitors approached them, walked around them, moved through them.
Each finalist will receive a computer and at least $5,000 in scholarship money; the winner gets $100,000.
Finalists will each get computer equipment to the value of £1,000; the two overall winners will win £1,500-worth of equipment each.
Each of the finalists will receive a new computer and at least a $5,000 scholarship.
In the research area of earth science, which Field 3 of SPIRE also covers, an urban-scale earthquake simulation study using the K computer was selected as a finalist for the Gordon Bell Prize (Ichimura et al. 2014, 2015).
Overall, the academic histories of the winners and finalists include degrees in seismology, engineering physics, computer science, immunology, oceanography, meteorology, chemistry, mechanical engineering, biology, physics, and embryology.
All the finalists will receive at least $5,000 and a laptop computer.
