CS 130: Computer Graphics

General

TR 9:30 AM - 10:50 AM, Sproul 2355
Textbook: Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, by Shirley, Ashikhmin, Marschner (4th edition on reserve at the library)
Syllabus: pdf.

Instructor

Craig Schroeder
Office Hours: MWF 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Chung 309, or by appointment
Email: craigs@cs.ucr.edu

Teaching Assistant

Fox Liu
Office Hours: TBD
Email: fox.liu@email.ucr.edu

Learning Outcomes

In this course you will learn about current techniques in computer graphics. By the end of the course, you should be familiar with:

Computer representations of geometric objects
- points, lines, rays, segments, planes, triangle, spheres
Computer representations of images
- Pixels, RGB, CMYK and the physical/anatomical basis for them
Raytracing
- Basic algorithm
- Computing ray-object intersections
- Computing object normals
- Illumination and shading models
- Features: shadows, reflections, transparency, texture mapping
Hardware rendering pipeline
- GPU pipeline
- Rasterization
- Transformations
  - Affine: scale, translation, rotation
  - Pipeline transformations
  - Homogeneous coordinates
- Barycentric coordinates
- Clipping
Using matrix and vectors to solve geometrical problems.
Marching cubes.
Bezier curves.

Schedule

Date	Topic	Reading	Notes

09/25	introduction, math, math, raster colors	2.1-2.4.8, 3, 21	intro, math, math, images

09/30	math, raytracing	2.5.5-2.5.7, 2.6, 4-4.4.4, 4.6	math, ray tracing
10/02	normals, lighting, shading	2.5, 4.5, 10	normals, lighting, shading

10/07	reflection, falloff, shadows, reflections, transmission	4.8, 4.7, 4.8, 13.1	falloff, reflection, shadow, reflection, transmission
10/09	schlick, barycentric coordinates, triangles, meshes	13.1, 2.7, 12.1	schlick, barycentric coordinates, meshes

10/14	antialiasing, acceleration	13.4, 12.3-12.5	antialiasing, acceleration
10/16	texture mapping	11	texture mapping

10/21	midterm
10/23	modern pipeline, rasterize lines, rasterize triangles	8.1.1, 8.1.2	OpenGL, pipeline, lines, lines, triangles

10/28	z-buffer, transforms-linear	8.2, 6	z-buffer, transforms
10/30	pipeline, pipeline transforms	8.2, 8.4, 7	pipeline, transforms

11/04	pipeline transforms, pers-correct interp	7	transforms, pers-correct interp
11/06	clipping, clipping	8.1.3-8.1.6	clipping, clipping

11/11	holiday
11/13	rotations		rotations

11/18	curves, curves	15, 15	curves, curves
11/20	marching cubes, marching cubes	16.3, 16.3	marching cubes, marching cubes

11/25	review
11/27	holiday

12/02	TBD
12/04	TBD

Note on academic integrity

All assignments are to be completed individually unless otherwise stated. The following are not allowed in this course. For the purposes of this course, they are violations of academic integrity. Violations of academic integrity will result in a score of 0 for the relevant assignment and a lowering of the final course grade by one letter grade (e.g., from A to B). In more severe or repeat cases, violations will result in an 'F' for the course and a referral to the campus academic integrity committee.

Working on homework with another student or sharing solutions with another student.
Asking or paying anyone to complete any portion of the course for you.
Copying or referring to homework solutions, code, or pseudocode from any source (other than course resources such as lecture notes or the course textbook).
Working on homework in a public Github repository (or anything else that results in your work being visible to other students or visible publicly), whether during or after the course. Working in a private Github repository is permitted, provided that repository stays private forever and is never shared. If you wish to share your code from this course with potential employers, please do so privately.
Looking up answers/hints to homework or coding problems online. ("Researching the question.") The Internet is a very useful resource, and there are many reasonable places for it in this course (C++ library reference, as a supplement to lectures, further information on interesting topics, etc.) But there is a fine line between using the Internet as a tool for learning and using the Internet as a tool for cheating. If you are not sure, ask.

The following are explicitly allowed.

Office hours (TA or instructor) are a great resource if you are stuck on a problem or otherwise struggling.
There are no restrictions on using resources from the course (course textbook, lectures, lecture notes, course website, etc.).
You may use past exams from this course as study aids. They are publicly available from the course websites from prior quarters.

If you find yourself struggling in the course, seek help early. The longer you wait, the fewer options will be available.

Start homework early, especially coding parts. If you start the night before, your chances of successful completion are slim. Although the coding is not intended to take a long time, the time required for debugging is unpredictable and varies wildly from student to student.

Grading

10%	discussion
10%	homework
30%	project
20%	midterm
30%	final

I do not follow a strict grading scheme, nor do I follow a strict curve. Instead, I do a hybrid between the two. (1) I do not curve individual assignments or exams, though I do include extra credit on some items. Curving only occurs at the end, if it occurs at all. (2) I never curve down. 90% is at least an A-, 80% is at least a B-, 70% is at least a C-, and 60% is at least a D. I will occasionally set lower cutoffs when the score distribution warrants it. (3) Other cutoffs (between A vs A-, B+ vs B, etc.) are based on the distribution of scores.