Lectures for CMSC 740: Graduate Computer Graphics

This page has pointers to the material covered in each lecture and will be updated throughout the semester. The lecture notes appearing on this page are copyrighted by Amitabh Varshney, except for images that appear with appropriate credits. Use of these lecture notes by students of the class CMSC 740 at the University of Maryland is permitted for their educational purposes. Any other use requires permission of the author.

These course notes are visible only from umd.edu domains.

Following each lecture I have listed the approximate (but usually not exhaustive) coverage of the topics that we covered in our lectures from the textbook by Alan Watt. The following reading suggestions are for the case when you do not fully understand what was discussed in the lectures. Unfortunately, the following list does not cover everything discussed in the class (there is no perfect textbook yet).


January 29

Discussion of course policies and course plan
Motivation, Overview, Pixel Operations, and Line Scan Conversion
applications, pipeline, bitmaps, pixmaps, raster/vector graphics, line scan-conversion
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Section 6.4

February 3

Graphics APIs and 2D Transforms
OpenGL, GLUT, translate, scale, rotate, shear, homogenous coordinates
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

February 5

3D Transformations and Quaternions
Representation, Composition, Local and global coordinates, 3D Rotations
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 17.2.4

February 10

3D Viewing
Parallel and perspective projections, selection and picking, backface and view-frustum culling
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Chapter 5

February 12

Color and Transparency
visual systems, models, dithering, gamma, blending
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 15.1, 15.2, 15.5

February 17

Scan-conversion of Polygons
seed fill, implicit filling, scan-line-based scan-conversion
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Section 6.4

February 19

Illumination and Shading
local illumination and interpolative shading
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 6.2, 6.3

February 24

Textures
use, types, mapping
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 8.1, 8.3, 8.4, 8.6, 8.8

February 26

Visibility Culling and Visibility Determination
Depth Cues, Z-buffer, BSP trees
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Section 6.6

March 2

Sampling and Filtering
Aliasing, Anti-aliasing, Reconstruction, Fourier Spectrum
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Chapter 14

March 4

Multipass Rendering and Rendering Equation
Shadows, depth of field, light maps, shadow maps
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 6.7, 8.5, and Chapter 9

March 9

Ray Tracing
algorithms and acceleration
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Chapter 12

March 11

Radiosity
motivation and basic algorithm
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Chapter 11

March 16

Modeling Overview
triangles, implicits, parametrics, CSG, procedural representations
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Chapter 2 (exclude Section 2.5)

March 18

General Local Illumination
Radiometric terms, BRDF, BSSRDF, Spherical Harmonic Lighting
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 7.3, 7.4, 7.7, 7.8

March 23, 25

Spring Break

March 30

Midterm Recap
Review of the course thus far and sample midterm discussion
PDF(2), PDF(6)

April 6

Level of Detail Rendering for Polygonal Models
motivation, simple hierarchies, simplification factors
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Chapters 1, 2, 3 of the LOD Book (on reserve at the CS Library)

April 8

Mesh LOD for 3D Graphics
simplification operators, algorithms, error evaluation, perceptual criteria
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Chapters 1, 2, 3 of the LOD Book (on reserve at the CS Library)

April 13

Interpolation and Approximation
Natural Splines, Bezier, B-Splines, Curves and Surfaces
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.4

April 15

Point-based Graphics
Motivation, QSplat, Differential Points, Statistical Points
PDF(2), PDF(6)
QSplat
Differential Points
Statistical Point Geometry

April 20

Image-based Graphics
overview, visibility disocclusion errors
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 16.1, 16.3.2, 16.4, 16.5

April 22

Volume Graphics
overview, rendering algorithms
PDF
Watt: Chapter 13

April 27

Implicit Surface Modeling
overview, interpolation algorithms
PDF
Implicit Surfaces that Interpolate by Turk, Dinh, O'Brien, Yngve
Reconstructing Surfaces using Anisotropic Basis Functions by Dinh, Turk, and Slabaugh

April 29

Computer Animation
overview, various approaches
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Watt: Sections 17.1, 17.2, 17.5, 17.6

May 4

Virtual Environments
overview, tracking, rendering, and display technologies
PDF

May 6

Non-Photorealistic Rendering
overview, texture synthesis, image analogies, curve synthesis, shading models
PDF(2), PDF(6)

May 11

Wrap-Up Review for Finals
course overview
PDF(2), PDF(6)