Lectures for CMSC 740: Advanced 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.

The following reading suggestions are for the case when you do not fully understand what was discussed in the lectures and refer to Chapters/Sections of the textbook {\em Fundamentals of Computer Graphics} by Shirley, 2nd Ed. Unfortunately, the following list does not cover everything discussed in the class (there is no perfect textbook yet).


September 2

Discussion of course policies and course plan
Overview, Human Visual System
applications, pipeline, perception
PDF
Reading: Chapter 1

September 4

Graphics Architectures and APIs
Evolution of graphics architectures, GPUs, OpenGL, GLUT
PDF
Reading: Chapters 17 and 18

September 9 and 11

Transformations and Viewing
types, composition, parallel/perspective
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapters 6 and 7


Assignment 1 is out.

September 16

Lines, Polygons, Visibility
scan-conversion, Z-buffer, BSP
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Sections 3.5, 3.6, Chapter 8

September 18, 23

Rendering
color, transparency, illumination, shading
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapters 9, 20

September 25

Rendering II: Textures
image-based, procedural, mapping, mesh representations
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 11


Assignment 2 is out.

September 30

Computer Animation
various types, interpolation, quaternions
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 16

October 2

Sampling and Aliasing
aliasing artifacts, anti-aliasing techniques, fourier spectrum
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 4

October 7

Global Illumination
ray tracing, radiosity
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapters 10 and 23

October 9 and 14

Volume Rendering
indirect and direct volume rendering, illumination, classification
PDF(2), PDF(6)
Reading: Chapter 26

Additional Reading:
Volume Rendering by Marc Levoy, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 1988
Volume Rendering by Drebin et al. SIGGRAPH 1988


Assignment 3 is out on Oct 9.

October 16

Midterm Discussion and Programmable Shading
early programmable shading languages
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
A Language for Shading and Lighting Calculations, Hanrahan and Lawson, SIGGRAPH 1990
Real-Time Programmable Shading, Lastra et al, ACM Symp on Interactive 3D Graphics, 1995

October 21

Midterm Exam


October 23

General-Purpose GPU Programming
Introduction to CUDA
PDF(1), PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Survey paper on GPGPU, Computer Graphics Forum 2007

October 28

Parallel and High-Performance Graphics
sorting classification, pipelining, control of parallel programs
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
A Sorting Classification of Parallel Rendering by Molnar et al, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 1994

October 30

Geometric Modeling
surface smoothing, discrete operators on meshes
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Geometric Signal Processing on Meshes, by Gabriel Taubin, Eurographics State of the Art Report, 2000

Assignment 4 is out on Oct 30.

November 4 and 6

Levels of Detail for 3D Meshes
operators, algorithms, errors
PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Level of Detail for 3D Graphics, by Luebke et al., 2003
Multiresolution Modeling: Survey and Future Opportunities, by Michael Garland, Eurographics State of the Art Report, 1999

November 11

Implicit Modeling
metaballs, blobby models
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Extracts from Implicit Surfaces for Geometric Modeling and Graphics, by Menon et al., Siggraph 1996

November 13

Implicit Modeling
radial-basis functions, interpolation
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Implicit Surfaces that Interpolate, by Turk et al., Shape Modeling and Applications 2001

November 18 and 20

Basis Functions for Rendering
spherical harmonic lighting
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Spherical Harmonic Lighting by Robin Green, Sony

November 25 and December 2

Advances in Pre-Computed Radiance Transfer
midrange illumination
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Spherical Harmonic Gradients for Mid-Range Illumination, 2004

December 4

Non Photorealistic Rendering (NPR)
stroke-based rendering, example-based NPR
PDF(2), PDF(6)


December 9

Salient Visualization
abstraction, lighting, saliency
PDF(2), PDF(6)

Additional Reading:
Mesh Saliency, 2005
Geometry-Dependent Lighting, 2006

December 11

Wrap-up Review
PDF(2), PDF(6)


December 16

Final Exam
CSI 3118, 8:00am - 10:00am

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