CMSC 312: Computer Graphics

Bryn Mawr College
CMSC 312: Computer Graphics
Fall 2010

Syllabus and Schedule

Course Information

Instructor Information

Textbooks and Software

Course Policies

Additional Resources

Syllabus and Schedule

This is a tentative syllabus and schedule. Topics, reading assignments, and due dates are subject to change.
All homework assignments are due by the end of the day listed.


Wk	Date	Topic	Reading	Lab	Homework	Comments
1	8/30	Introduction, history of graphics	Angel Chapter 1 C notes Makefile tutorial	C recap lab0
	9/1	3D graphics fundamentals, graphics architectures
	9/3	Graphics architectures (continued), RenderMan
2	9/6	Labor Day! (No Class)
	9/8	OpenGL basics: init, data types, primitives	Angel 2&3 gdb tutorials: 1, 2	Intro to OpenGL Mouse and keyboard lab1	hw1 out
	9/10	Event loops and call backs	Angel 2&3 gdb tutorials: 1, 2	Intro to OpenGL Mouse and keyboard lab1
3	9/13	Geometry intro and review	Angel 4	C styles lab2
	9/15	Coordinate Frames and Homogeneous Coordinates
	9/17	Coordinate Frames and Homogeneous Coordinates (continued)
4	9/20	2D and 3D geometry and transformations	Angel 4	Transformations in GL lab3
	9/22	Transformations (continued), Fractal Modeling	Angel 5
	9/24	Window to viewport mapping, world coordinates, 2-D view transformation	Angel 5		hw1 due; hw2 out
5	9/27	3D view volumes and viewing transformations (see above slides)	Angel 5	No lab, due to Grace Hopper Conference
	9/29	C/C++ tips, OpenGL nuances
	10/1	Procedural animations
6	10/4	Projections and perspective	Angel 5	No lab -- please use the time to finish your projects
	10/6	Projections and perspective (continued)
	10/8	Projections and perspective (continued)			hw2 due; hw3 out	OpenGL modeling notes OpenGL viewing notes
7	10/11	Fall Break! (No Class)
8	10/18	Lights and Materials	Angel 6	Lights and materials Lab 4 Environment Files
	10/20	Flat, Gouraud and Phone Shading in OpenGL
	10/22	Shading (Continued)			hw3 due (Sunday 10/24); hw4 out
9	10/25	Texture, bump, displacement mapping	Angel 8.6-8.12 (skip parts on antialiasing) (Skim 8.1-8.5)	No lab, due to my travels
	10/27	No class due to travels
	10/29	No class due to travels
10	11/1	Texture, Bump Mapping in OpenGL	See above	Texture mapping Lab 5
	11/3	Rasterization, Clipping, HSR, Anti-aliasing	Angel 7.1-7.5
	11/5	Rasterization, Clipping, HSR, Anti-aliasing / Review	Angel 7.7-7.12		hw 4 due (Sunday 11/7); hw5 out
11	11/8	Midterm Exam		No Lab Due to Midterm
	11/10	Ray-tracing	Angel 12, 7, 8
	11/12	Ray-tracing (continued) Reflection and refraction	Angel 12, 7, 8
12	11/15	Anti-aliasing and Ray-tracing	Angel 12, 7, 8	env effects Lab 6
	11/17	Advanced Ray-tracing	Angel 10
	11/19	GL transparency and environmental effects	Angel 10		hw5 due (Sunday 11/21); hw6 out
13	11/22	Advanced Ray-tracing (continued)	Angel 10
	11/24	Procedural Shaders / Textures	Angel 11.9
	11/26	Happy Thanksgiving! (No Class)
14	11/29	Global Illumination	Angel 13.5	video capture lab (optional)
	12/1	Splines and Surfaces	Angel 12.1-12.6
	12/3	Splines and Surfaces (continued)	Angel 12.7-12.12
15	12/6	Splines and Surfaces (continued); Particle Systems	Angel 11.1-11.6
	12/8	Last Day of Class! Particle Systems (continued), HDR Imaging	Angel 11.1-11.6
	12/10	(Optional) Showcase of videos from SIGGRAPH'10 2-4pm in Park Room 231. Snacks provided. Be there!
	12/17				hw6 due

General Course Information

Description: An introduction to the fundamental principles of computer graphics: including 3D modeling, rendering and animation. Topics cover: 2D and 3D transformations; rendering techniques; geometric algorithms; 3D object models (surface and volume); visible surface algorithms; shading and mapping; ray tracing; and select others.

Prerequisites: CMSC 206, CMSC/MATH 231 and CMSC 246 or permission of instructor.

Lecture Hours: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays, 1-2 pm
Room: Park 336

Lab Hours: TBD
Lab room: Park 232

Website: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/cs312/

Contact Information and Office Hours

Professor: Eric Eaton
Office: Park 249
Office Phone: 610-526-5061
E-Mail:
Website: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~eeaton

E-mail is the best way to reach me, and I make a concerted effort to respond to all e-mails within 24 hours on weekdays and 48 hours on weekends (often, much less!).

Office hours: Mondays 2-4pm and by appointment

Textbooks & Software

Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-down Approach using OpenGL, 5th Edition by Edward Angel, Addison Wesley 2008.

You will also need a good OpenGL reference. Here are some recommendations:
OpenGL SuperBible, 5th Edition by Wright, et al., Addison Wesley 2011.
OpenGL: A Primer, 3rd Edition by Edward Angel, Addison Wesley 2007.
OpenGL Programming Guide (the red book), 6th Edition by Shreiner, et al., Addison Wesley 2007.
Software: We will be using the C and C++ programming languages and the openGL libraries for all laboratory and programming assignments. We will also be using the Pixie, an open-source RenderMan-compliant renderer.

Course Policies

Communication

Attendance and active participation are expected in every class. Participation includes asking questions, contributing answers, proposing ideas, and providing constructive comments.

As you will discover, I am a proponent of two-way communication and I welcome feedback during the semester about the course. I am available to answer student questions, listen to concerns, and talk about any course-related topic (or otherwise!). Come to office hours! This helps me get to know you. You are welcome to stop by and chat. There are many more exciting topics to talk about that we won't have time to cover in-class.

Whenever you e-mail me, please use a meaningful subject line and include the phrase "CS312" at the beginning of that line. Your e-mail will catch my attention and I will respond quicker if you do this. I make an effort to respond to e-mails within 24 hours on weekdays and 48 hours on weekends.

Although computer science work can be intense and solitary, please stay in touch with me, particularly if you feel stuck on a topic or project and can't figure out how to proceed. Often a quick e-mail, phone call or face-to-face conference can reveal solutions to problems and generate renewed creative and scholarly energy. I strongly recommend beginning homeworks and projects early, since we will be covering a variety of challenging topics in this course.

Grading

Your final grade will be composed of :

Homework and Project Assignments -- 60%
Midterm Exam -- 20%
Final Project -- 15%
Class Participation -- 5%
Incomplete grades will be given only for verifiable medical illness or other such dire circumstances.

Throughout the semester, I will give you feedback as to how the various scores map to letter grades.

Submission and Late Policy

All work must be turned in either in hard-copy or electronic submission, depending on the instructions given in the assignment. E-mail submissions, when permitted, should request a "delivery receipt" to document time and date of submission. Extensions will be given only in the case of verifiable medical excuses or other such dire circumstances, if requested in advance.

Late submissions will receive a penalty of 5% for every 24 hours it is past the due date and time. Submissions received more than one week late will not be accepted.

If you are dissatisfied with your grade on a homework project, you may resubmit it at any time to try and improve that grade, up to the level of a B+ equivalent.

Exams

There will be a midterm exam in this course, and no final exam. The exam will be closed-book and closed-notes. It will cover material from lectures, homeworks, and assigned readings (including topics not discussed in class). So, keep up with those readings!

Study Groups

I want to encourage you to discuss the material and work together to understand it. Here are my thoughts on collaborating with other students:

The readings and lecture topics are group work. Please discuss the readings and associated topics with each other. Work together to understand the material. I highly recommend forming a reading group to discuss the material -- we will explore many challenging ideas in computer graphics and it helps to have multiple people working together to understand them.
It is fine to discuss the topics covered in the homeworks, to discuss approaches to problems, and to sketch out general solutions. However, you MUST write up the homework answers, solutions, and programs individually without sharing specific solutions, mathematical results, program code, etc. If you made any notes or worked out something on a white board with another person while you were discussing the homework, you shouldn't use those notes while writing up your answer.
You are fully permitted to (and should!) discuss the project with your partners for any group assignments. I also encourage you to work outside of your team to understand the other topics in the course.
Exams, of course, must be your own individual work.

If you have any questions as to what types of collaborations are allowed, please feel free to ask.

Additional Resources

OpenGL

RenderMan

Pixie, an open-source RenderMan-compliant renderer
Dot C Software links page — Includes information on all known RenderMan implementations, living and dead. If you're looking for RenderMan on another platform, look here.
Renderman for Poets (pdf), a simple RenderMan guide.
The Renderman Specification (especially useful for information on defaults), from Pixar's web site.

Misc

History of the Utah teapot

Thanks to Dianna Xu and Marc Olano for making their course materials available. Many of the course materials for this class have been adapted form those sources.