CSc 433/533: Computer Graphics (Fall, 2005)
[ Syllabus ]

Course page

Instructor:

Kobus Barnard, Gould-Simpson 730
Office Hours: Thursday, 10:00-11:00, Friday 2:00-2:54, by electronic signup.
Email: kobus @ cs.arizona.edu    (remove blanks around the @)

Teaching Assistant

Amy Platt
Office hours: TBA
Email: platt @ cs.arizona.edu    (remove blanks around the @)

Graphics Machines in GS 930:

Students are welcome to make use of the graphics lab in GS 930. There are currently 8 workstations which are largely available for this course this semester. The hostnames are (gr01-gr08).cs.arizona.edu.

Prerequisites:

C SC 342 , C SC 352 , Math 215

Recommended text:

The text book is recomended by not required. The course content will be on-line. Many students will find it helpful to refer to a text, and the choice listed below is comprehensive yet friendly. However, it is possible to get through this course without buying the book.

• Hearn and Baker. Computer graphics , Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.

Other books that my be useful (I have copies that I can lend):

• J.D. Foley, A. van Dam, S. Feiner, J. Hughes, and R. Phillips. Introduction to Computer Graphics. Addison-Wesley (1994). (this text has been used for this course a number of times; some of the approaches in the notes have their roots in this book).
• J.D. Foley, A. van Dam, S. Feiner, J. Hughes. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice. (standard reference, non-abridged version of the above)
• Alan Watt, 3D computer graphics, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley, 0-201-39855-9. Highly recomended, but somewhat advanced.
• Edward Angel. Interactive Computer Graphics: A top down approach with OpenGL. (friendly introduction, good for learning OpenGL and graphics together).

Overview:

Computer graphics is the art and science of creating digital images from abstract computer encoded models. We will consider both the reduction of models to images (rendering) and model creation (modeling). We will also touch upon issues for both these aspects when sequences of images are to be created (animation).

This course will focus on fundamentals. We will make extensive use of basic linear algebra and geometry. A sound understanding of using matrices to represent transformations will be very helpful. You should be comfortable thinking about problems such as: Given a point, is it in the plane of a polygon? If so, and if the polygon is convex, is the point inside the polygon? I will go over the requisite math as it arises, but if you are not confident with your background, you may wish to contact the instructor to discuss it.

This course will have a heavy programming component. Assignments must be written in either C or C++ and must compile and run on linux.

This course will have both graduate and undergraduate students (including honors students). Graduate students will have additional requirements for assignments and on exams. It is possible for grad students to negotiate exchanging research oriented project work for assignments. In this case, depending on what it is that you wish to do, the requirements might resemble those from the Fall 2004 version of the course .

Topics:

This is a very tentative outline of the material to be covered. The topics and their depth will be adjusted as needed. In parenthesis I have put an estimate of the number of lectures that will be used for that general topic area. There are 29 lectures in this term. I have left the equivalent of 3 lectures for quizes and review/assignment issues, 1 for a non-testable bonus lecture, and 2 for important topics I have forgotten and/or schedule slippage.

If you want to see more details about what the course is like, you may wish to look at the slides from last year . We will likely cover the topics in a slightly different order this term, and there will be some modifications, but there will be perhaps 90% overlap with the material covered last term.

• Course orientation. Introduction to graphics. Math preview. Graphics primitives. Introduction to OpenGL. Event processing via callbacks for interactive graphics programs. How images are made to appear on computer monitors (3).

• Basic algorithms for drawing lines, anti-aliasing, filling polygons, etc. (2).

• 2D Clipping (1).

• 2D transformations. Mapping to view-port. Homogeneous coordinates (2).

• 3D transformations (1).

• Projecting from 3D to 2D, 3D clipping (3).

• Basic color, shading and surface models (Lambertian, Phong) (1).

• 3D visibility (back plane culling, Z buffer, ray casting, etc) (2).

• Ray tracing (1).

• Modeling basics. Hierarchical modeling; Introduction to constructive solid geometry (2).

• Shading and surface models revisited, Color, Gouraud shading, Radiosity (3).

• Curves and curved surfaces. Fractals (2).

• Animation (1).

Grading:

    Assignments: 60%
    Quizes: 15%
    Final: 25%

A cumulative percentage of 90% guarantees an A, 80% guarantees a B, 70% a C, and 60% a D. Depending on overall class performance, these lines may be lowered a bit (possibly differently for 433 and 533).

Assignments:

There will 5-8 programming assignments, and 0-2 written assignments. The written assignments may overlap the programming assignments in order to give students lots of time for the former. Some of the written assignments may be optional.

Programming assignments will be handed in electronically, and thus will be time stamped. Material to be submitted will include source code, a makefile, an executable, and likely other files as explained in the instructions for each given assignment.

The programs must build (and the executable must run) on Linux. The installations available on the CS graphics machines (gr01-gr08) will be used as reference systems for submitted material. If programs are developed elsewhere, or on other OS's, they should be checked on these machines before being handed in.

The programming assignments are designed to both provide experience in writing interactive graphics software, and to help students learn specific theoretical material.

Exams:

There will be between 4 and 8 "pop" quizes, and one final. There will be no midterm. Quizes will be given at the begining of lecture on random, unnanounced days. The quizes and exams will include material which is not part of the programming assignments. Some form of limited notes will be allowed for the final exam (exact format to be announced). Grads and U-grads will share the final exam (not necessarily all questions), but grads will be required to do more of it to achieve the same grade.

Policies:

Attendance will be noted, and can affect your grade. (Extreme absenteeism may result in E-mail asking if you would like to be removed from the course with the default non-reply answer being "yes"). Students are responsible for all material presented in class. Class notes and slides will be made available, but these are only an overview of the material--some details will only be presented in class.

Exams must be attended at their appointed time unless you have permission in advance to do otherwise. This means that if you will be away, and there is a possibility of a quiz that day, you must let me know in 48 hours in advance by E-mail.

Assignment late policy: Late assignments will be accepted with penalty until five days late. From that point onwards, assignments will not be accepted. This is a matter of courtesy to your TA. The late penalty is 10% per day.

Some attempt will be made to detect violations of the University of Arizona's academic integrity policy. Specifically, exams and written assignment must be the sole work of the student. Students may help each other with the problem analysis and general strategies relevant to the programing assignments, but detailed help or code sharing is not permitted. All code in programming assignments will be assumed to have been written by the student (or student team) unless attribution is given. An obvious exception to this rule is sample code which has been provided by the instructor for this course through the course web page tree. Such code does not require attribution (we know where it came from). It is also permissible to include with attribution code from external sources provided that the code is published, has not been solicited, and was not written for course requirement for this or a similar course given elsewhere.