Lectures for CMSC 427: Introduction to 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 and slides that appear with appropriate credits. Use of these lecture notes by students of the class CMSC 427 at the University of Maryland is permitted for their educational purposes. Any other use requires permission of the author.

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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 Shirley. 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 27

Discussion of course policies and course plan
Motivation, Overview
applications, pipeline
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 1

January 29

Graphics APIs
OpenGL, Event-Driven Computing, GLUT, Pixel Operations
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 18, Sections 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 12.5

February 3

Graphics Meshes and Illumination
Overview of triangles, normals, meshes, and local illumination models
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 9 and Section 2.11

February 5 and 10

Shading and Texturing
Flat, Gouraud, Phong Shading, Texture Mapping
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapters 9 and 11

February 12

2D and 3D Transformations
hierarchical transformations, 3D rotations
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 6

February 17

3D Viewing and Picking
canonical views and selection
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 7

February 19

Visibility Determination
visibility techniques, Z-buffer, Painter's algorithm, Cells/Portals, BSP trees
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 8

February 24

Color, Transparency, and Shadows
color spaces, blending, dithering, shadow algorithms
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 20

February 26

Modeling Curves and Surfaces
modeling overview, Bezier curves and surfaces
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapters 2 and 15

March 5

Cullings and Collisions
VFC, backface, collision detection techniques
PDF(2), PDF (6)
Reading: Sections 12.3, 12.4

March 10

Physically based Modeling
differential equations, mass-spring systems
PDF
Reading: Section 16.5

March 12

Graphics Processing Units
architecture and applications
PDF(2), PDF (6)

March 24

Graphics Shading Languages
Evolution of shading languages
PDF (2), PDF(6)

March 26

CUDA Programming
General-purpose Programming on GPUs
PDF

March 31

Midterm Recap


April 2

Midterm Exam


April 7 and 9

Ray Tracing and Radiosity
overview and acceleration
PDF (2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 10

April 14

Human Visual Systems and Displays
overview, CRT, LCD, DMD, stereo displays
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Sections 3.1, 21.2

April 16

Line and Polygon Scan-Conversion
overview, various alogrithms
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Sections 3.5, 3.6, 3.7

April 21

CUDA Lecture (continued from March 26) and Demos

April 23

Sampling and Filtering
aliasing causes, antialiasing
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.5

April 28 and 30

Volume Rendering
motivation, overview, volume rendering pipeline
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 26

May 5

Computer Animation
keyframe, procedural, mocap, stylization, quaternions
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 16

May 7

Salient Visualization
motivation, recent results
PDF(2), PDF(6)

May 12

Course Recap
discussion of the course and the sample final exam
PDF(2), PDF(6)

May 14

Final Exam
CSI 1122, 8:00am - 10:00am