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? Computer Displays Movies / Video Print Interactive Media

o Gameso Virtual Reality

Other devices (mobile) Physical objects – all designed on computer, and not fabricated with a 3D printer ...

What kinds of applications?

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 ...

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

Text, diagrams, …

What is Computer GraphicsVisual computing

Images Geometric / Object-based graphics

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Ways to think about computer graphicsImages 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?– Basics of Light

o Electromagnetic radiationo Waves, frequencies (later)

– Particle modelo Travels from source to receiver

– Source to Viewer? (NY Times Story 1999 – the idea of the millennium)o Not known until around 1000o Euclid and Ptolemy PROVED otherwiseo Ibn Al Haythan (Al-hazen) around 985o Triumph of the scientific methodo Proof by observation – not authorityo Experimento 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):

– Color (frequency)– Direction

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Is it a window or a display screenIf we consider a specific point in space for the eye

DisplaysSampled displays vs. Vector displays

Pixel-based (grids of samples)

– Monitors / Projectors / ... Inkjet/LaserJet

Vector / Non-Pixel

– 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 planIt’s a work in progress

It will change as the experiment unfolds

Class policiesEverything 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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