CMSC 635: Advanced Computer Graphics


Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department
University of Maryland, Baltimore County


Spring 1997

M, W 2:30 -3:45
SS 204

Welcome to the Home Page for the New CMSC 635!

This page will be updated throughout the semester with new course information.

Important Information

The following are some sample images which YOU will be able to create at the end of this course (except for the steam).

Here are few Computer Graphics related sites which you might want to check out.


Prerequisites

CMSC 435, or permission of instructor.

Course Description

Advanced graphics including hidden surface removal, shading, texturing, illumination, anti-aliasing, procedural techniques, and modeling. Students will become familiar with the state-of-the-art in rendering, and encouraged to extend the state-of-the-art.

Students whose final projects (along with a paper) get accepted to SIGGRAPH 97 (LA), Visualization 97(Phoenix), or SIGGRAPH 98 (Orlando) will get partial to full funding for a trip to that conference! Final projects could serve as the basis of a Master's project or thesis.

Possible Final Project Topics

Textbook

Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques, Watt and Watt, Addison Wesley. Additional reading of papers from the literature may be required.

Good References:

Course Schedule

Tentative Syllabus
Week Date Topics Chapter Lab
2 Feb. 3 Introduction; overview; 1
  Feb. 5 view pipeline review. illumination review  
3 Feb. 10 Hidden Surface Removal
Characterization, Coherence, HSR - Object Space Techniques 		Characterization...
  Feb. 12 HSR - Start of Image Space Techniques  
4 Feb. 17 Finish HSR, Intro to Edge,
Illumination and Lighting 		 
  Feb. 19 Illumination and Lighting
Local Illumination models, shading		 2.1-2.6,
Cooke & Torrence 		Lab 1 : advanced illumination
5 Feb. 24 Advanced Illumination:
Light Characteristics, transparency 		2.6, 5  
  Feb. 26 Shadow Generation:
Shadow edges, polygons, volumes		 5  
6 Mar. 3 Shadows cont.
Radiosity 		11
  Mar. 5 Radiosity cont. 11
7 Mar. 10 Rhythm & Hues Talk
1pm LH V 		 
  Mar. 12 Global Illumination: radiosity, raytracing, rendering equation 12 Lab1 Due
8 Mar. 17 Progress Reports ; Review for Midterm   Lab 4 Progress Reports due
  Mar. 19 Midterm   Lab2: Texturing
9 Mar. 31 Review Midterm
 Texture Mapping: Introduction 		6
  Apr. 2 Texture mapping: Environmental, bump mapping 6, Heckbert
10 Apr. 7 Bump mapping; 2D Procedural Texturing
  Apr. 9 Solid Texturing: Intro to turbulence 7, 7.2,
Perlin, Peachey
  Apr. 9 Advanced Solid Texturing 7, 7.2,
Ebert, Gardner
11 Apr. 14 Aliasing: Fundamentals, sampling and Fourier Synthesis 4.1, 4.2 Assign Lab 3: Procedural Techniques
  Apr. 16 Anti-Aliasing Techniques: filtering, supersampling, stochastic techniques 4.3-4.5
Cook's paper 		Lab 2 Due
12 Apr. 21 Anti-Aliasing: ray tracing, texture mapping, color, time 4.6-4.10
  Apr. 23 Procedural Techniques: Modeling 7.1, 7.3
13 Apr. 28 Art & Computer Graphics Talk: Prof. Diana Gromala 7.1, 7.3
  Apr. 30 Procedural Modeling, L-systems, Particle Systems, Fractals 14.1, 7.4, 7.5
14 May 5 Graphics Expert Speaker: one of Rushmeier, Parent, Glassner, Feiner, Treinish, Crawfis, Hansen  
  May 7 Review, Student Presentations   Lab 3 Due
15 May 12 Animation Expert Speaker: one of Jonathan Luskin, Pauline Ts'o, Chris Wedge   Lab 4 Due
  May 19 Final Exam  

Labs

The lab assignments will require the use of UNIX and the C programming language. A tentative list of assignments is given below. Lab assignments will be due at MIDNIGHT of the due date.

Lab Schedule
Lab Weight Description Week Assigned
Lab1 9% Simple hidden surface with smooth shading and advanced illumination 2
Lab2 12% Texture mapping 4
Lab3 6% Procedural Techniques 6
Lab4 18% Semester Graphics Ultimate Project: Extend the state of the art in graphics: Can be done in pairs. 1


Late Policy

10% per 24 hours late. No labs accepted after 5 days past the due date. Labs will be submitted electronically. Labs are expected to be worked on individually (except lab 4). Collaboration in any form will not be tolerated. Any form of collaboration or copying of labs will be dealt with according to university policy.

Examination Policy

Exams are closed book and fixed duration. Make-up exams will only be given when a student is prevented from taking the exam due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g., sickness), and formal proof will be required to prove the prevailing circumstance.

Academic Honesty

Cheating in any form will not be tolerated. You may discuss programming assignments with anyone. However, any help you receive must be documented. At the beginning of your program, you must include a comment indicating the sources you used while working on it (excluding course staff and text), and the type of help you received from them. If you received no help, say so. Failure to include this comment at the top of your program will result in your program being returned ungraded.

Newsgroup

There will be local newsgroups named umbc.course.cs635 for this course. We will post messages to this newsgroup and assume that you will read them. You should also feel free to post your own messages to this newsgroup if you feel you have something that would be useful and appropriate to share with the rest of the class. If you do not know how to read news, you should find out by reading the man page for the rn command.

Grading Policy

Grades will be assigned on the basis of accumulated points. The weighting is as follows:

As per University policy, incomplete will be granted only under extraordinary circumstances; students who are enrolled after April 9 (the last day to drop a class) should be prepared to receive a grade of A-F.

Letter Grades

The following general range will be used:

David S. Ebert
Last modified: Fri May 9 13:33:27 EDT