Questions to Start With
• Why are you here?
• What is Computer Graphics?
• What do you want to get out of it?
• What do you expect?
• What have you heard?
• Do not want to blow a lecture on mechanics
Topics to Start With
+ What is Computer Graphics – the topic
+ What is Computer Graphics - the class
+ What is different this year?
+ Some basic things to get started
What is Computer Graphics?
• How computers create things we see
alternative
• Geometry – Geometry for non-visual stuff, often another field
3D printing – makes this important again
What is the field of Graphics?
(as far as we’re concerned as a part of CS)
• Not content – class is how to make pictures, not what pictures to make
• Not how to use graphics tools (***)
Lots of related fields: image processing, computational geometry, art and design, computer vision
No “hard boundaries” – we’ll have to learn a little about lots of things
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What kinds of things do we see?
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Computer Displays
Movies / Video
Print
Interactive Media
o Games
o Virtual Reality
Other devices (mobile)
Physical objects – all designed on computer, and not fabricated with a 3D printer
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What kinds of applications?
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Computer Displays
Entertainment
Design
Communication
Simulation
Medicine / Science
What is computer graphics?
(almost) Any picture we see! and a lot more than “computer pictures.”
Computers touch everything ...
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All movies
Photography (even film is printed digitally)
Print
Everything is designed on computers
More than Pictures? (3D Displays, Models...)
Not just pictures of the world
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Text, diagrams, …
What is Computer Graphics
Visual computing
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Images
Geometric / Object-based graphics
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Ways to think about computer graphics
Images vs. Objects
Visual vs. Geometric
Interactive (using graphics hardware) vs. other-things
2D vs. 3D
Generally, things get turned into a picture on a display device for a person to look at.
How do we see? What is an image?
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Basics of Light
o Electromagnetic radiation
o Waves, frequencies (later)
Particle model
o Travels from source to receiver
Source to Viewer? (NY Times Story 1999 – the idea of the millennium)
o Not known until around 1000
o Euclid and Ptolemy PROVED otherwise
o Ibn Al Haythan (Al-hazen) around 985
o Triumph of the scientific method
o Proof by observation – not authority
o Experiment
o stare at sun, burns eyes, ...
Also figured out light travels in straight lines
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Depth and Distance
Light travels in straight lines – Except in weird cases that only occur in theoretical physics
Doesn’t matter how far away
Can’t tell where photon comes from
Sense distributions of photons
Photons leaving source might not all make it to eye
Photons might bounce around on stuff
Longer distance, more chance of hitting something
Qualities of light (photons):
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Color (frequency)
Direction
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Is it a window or a display screen
If we consider a specific point in space for the eye
Displays
Sampled displays vs. Vector displays
Pixel-based (grids of samples)
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Monitors / Projectors / ... Inkjet/LaserJet
Vector / Non-Pixel
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Old fashioned displays
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Nowadays:
Use graphics hardware
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What will we try to teach you?
How to represent objects in the image (2d) and in space (3D) as collections of primitives
How to manipulate these representations (transformations, linear algebra)
How to map 3D objects into the image image (3D drawing)
How to represent more complex shapes (smooth ones)
How graphics hardware draws this all efficiently
How to use the graphics hardware to draw it nicely
How to get the effects of lighting
How to describe appearance – with a focus on tricks that are easy for getting the right look
How the human eye works, especially how it sees color and depth
How we deal with images, in order to make nice ones and work with photographs
How we could make more realistic images, if we had the time
Some of the math that you will need to know to do this kind of stuff
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Week 1
Sep 1-5
Welcome and Co-Ordinate Systems
Readings 1: General graphics things, Coordinate Systems, SVG
Week 2
Sep 8-12
Linear Algebra and Transformations in 2D, Drawing in 2D
Readings 2: Linear Algebra and Transformations
Assignment 0: Kick the Tires, Assignment 1: SVG Signs of Life
Week 3
Sep 15-19
Linear Algebra and Transformations in 3D
Assignment 2: SVG transformations
Week 4
Sep 22-26
Drawing in 3D
Assignment 3: Kinematics
Week 5
Sep 29-Oct 3
Shape in 2D and 3D
Assignment 4: 3D in SVG
Week 6
Oct 6-10
Interpolation and Approximation (Curves and Surfaces)
Assignment 5: SVG Curves
Week 7
Oct 13-17
Graphics Hardware and Shaders
Assignment 6: 3D programming
Week 8
Oct 20-24
Lighting
Project 1: Signs of Life Checkpoint
Week 9
Oct 27-31
Texture and Real-time tricks
MIDTERM EXAM (Tuesday, Oct 28, 7:15pm)
Week 10
Nov 3-7
Topic TBD
Project 1 Due
Week 11
Nov 10-14
Color
Readings 11:
Assignment 10:
Week 12
Nov 17-21
Topic TBD
Readings 12:
Assignment 11:
Week 13
Nov 24-28
Images and Practical Display Considerations
Project 2 Checkpoint
Thanksgiving
Week 14
Dec 1-5
Image Processing and Computational Photography
Assignment
Week 15
Dec 8-12
Realistic Rendering and Ray Casting
Project 2 Due
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What’s different this time around…
I haven’t taught the class in 4 years
I am not convinced about the textbook
The infrastructure for the class has decayed
There are far more students
No assumption of linear algebra
Many students take linear algebra, without getting the correct intuitions
Topics list is about the same – really little change over the past decade.
The fundamentals are a constant.
Want to make the class about graphics, not “how to write big programs”
It’s not about an API, or a language, or …
But – there is a learn by doing aspect to graphics
And, students (historically) liked the chance to do cool (bigger) things
Tension…
De-emphasize projects – 2 smaller projects
Find other ways for you to experiment with the concepts – without building big programs
No book
Franken-book (plus unpublished drafts)
Dream of lots of hand-crafted tutorials and videos - Reality is setting in
Lectures
Would like it to be more than just a monologue
Will work on that
You are responsible for what I talk about (notes availability)
Reading about pedagogy – what worked for me way back vs. best-practices
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Class plan
It’s a work in progress
It will change as the experiment unfolds
Class policies
Everything on the website
Not too much email (unless you want it)
Piazza, Moodle
It’s a little unwieldy at first: but as we get to steady state, things level off
Rhythym of class:
2 lectures a week
Extra “help” and “un-help” sessions and lab sessions
Readings each week (read ahead/read behind)
Something due every Wednesday
“This week in 559” posting to try to untangle the web
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