This is the home page for the course CS 274: Computer Graphics, offered by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Vermont, Fall 2006.

General Information:

• Instructor: Robert R. Snapp (e-mail).
• Office Hours.
• Class meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in Room 207 Votey, 2:30–3:20 p.m.
• Graduate Teaching Assistant: Ron Magnuson (e-mail).

Textbooks:

• Peter Shirley et al., Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, second edition, A. K. Peters, Natick, MA, 2005.
Errata. We'll refer to this book as FOCG.
• Dave Shreiner, Mason Woo, Jackie Neider, and Tom Davis, and OpenGL Programming Guide, Third (1999) or Fourth (2003) or Fifth (2006) Edition, Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusetts. Known as The Red Book. (Required). (Errata sheet and example programs.)
• The reference list.

Handouts:

Most handouts are availabe in pdf format, a page description language supported by Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Acrobat Reader for your personal computer, you can download it for free from Adobe.

• syllabus [pdf] (3 pages).

Homework Assignments:

• In FOCG please read Chapters 1 and 2: pp. 1 - 49. This should be a review of basic math and C++ programming. Please complete exercises 4 - 13 on pp. 48-49. Problem 6 should be done in C or C++. Submit a hard copy of the source and use the submit program to submit a soft copy. Problems 12 and 13 can be implemented in pseudo-code. Also, download sierpinski.c and compile and test it on your machine. Briefly explain how the mathematical algorithm works. Try running it with different initial values for p[2]. Please also comment on the code's style and efficiency. How else could it be written? Due, Friday, Sept. 8, 2006.
• In FOCG please read Chapters 3 and 5. We will skip Chapter 4. Visit the web site www.libpng.org/pub/png and download the requisite libraries to support the development of applications that use png formatted images. You may also need to install zlib and libpng. (Note: macintosh users may prefer to download libpng from fink.sourceforge.net. Mac OS X already installs zlib.) Also download the C++ headers that I wrote: pixelArray.h defines a base class that manages the geometry of a rectangular array of pixels, and rgbImage.h defines a parameterized derived class that supports RGB images, with the ability to read from, and write to, png image files. A member function drawPixels(), enables you to view the rgb image in an OpenGL application. A rough example appears in the application program viewPng.cc. Please study and experiment with these source files. Compile and execute viewPng for your favorite png image downloaded from the web. Your assignment will be to extend this functionality to support the drawing of arbitrary line segments and circular arcs using the midpoint algorithm, and filled triangles, as described in Chapter 3, and in the course notes. You may either add new member functions to this class, or create a new derived class that supports this functionality. Then demonstrate your implementation by creating a program that generates a png image that contains an interesting design that contains an assortment of line segments, circular arcs, and filled triangles. This assignment is due Friday, September 22, 2006.

Lecture Notes:

• Introduction [pdf]. (9/5/03)
• Viewports [pdf]. (9/8/03)
• Displays [pdf]. (9/10/03)
• Raster Algorithms (lines) [pdf]. (9/12/03)
• Raster Algorithms (circles) [pdf]. (9/15/03)
• More ways to draw circles [pdf]. (9/17/03)
• Scanline Fill Algorithm [pdf]. (9/22/03)
• Antialiasing [pdf]. (9/24/03)
• Boundary and Flood Fill [pdf]. (9/26/03)
• Mathematics of rotations [pdf].
• Two-dimensional transformations [ pdf].
• Three-dimensional transformations [ pdf].
• Viewing in two-dimensions [pdf].
• Viewing in three-dimensions [pdf].
• Polyhedral Models [pdf].
• Spline Models [pdf].

Source Code:

• sierpinski.c is a simple C program that displays a two-dimensional fractal using OpenGL. ( makefile).
• Example Programs from the OpenGL Red Book
• bentley
• My lighting demo program: polylight.tar

Resources:

• FAQ for comp.graphics.algorithms
• Computer Graphics Software Tools on the Internet
• Graphica Obscura: Collected Computer Graphics Hacks
• ACM SIGGRAPH Web Resources for Learning [Graphics] on the Web
• The home page of Jim Blinn of Microsoft Research.
• The home page of Paul Debevec.
• The home page of Henrik Wann Jensen of Stanford University, including realistic animations of smoke with a photon map renderer.
• The home page of Ron Fedkiw, Stanford University.
• The Digital Michaelangelo Project at Stanford University.
• The home page of Ken Musgrave of pandromeda.com.
• The home page of Demetri Terzopoulos, University of Toronto.
• Brown University Computer Graphics Group.
• Caltech Computer Graphics Group.
• Computer Graphics and Visualization at the Univeristy of Utah.
• Pixar Animation Studios.
• Industrial Light + Magic.

OpenGL Web Sites

• The Official Web Page of the OpenGL consortium. Here you will find lots of documentation, including information about GLUT (the OpenGL Utility Toolkit). There are also links to many tutorials.
• Nate Robins's OpenGL tutorials, programs, and course notes.
• SGI's OpenGL WWW Center
• GLUI is a device independent graphical user interface written in OpenGL by Paul Rademacher, currently a graduate student at the University of North Carolina., Chapel Hill.

Postscript Web Sites

• Glenn Reid's excellent guide, Thinking in Postscript is out of print. But click here for information on how to download a free pdf copy for your personal use.

Graphics Hardware

• nVIDIA