CSCI 357

Computer Graphics

Fall, 2008

 

This is a programming course in computer graphics. It has three serious prerequisites: a knowledge of C programming (all of the libraries we will use are in C/C++ and are not java-compatible), knowlege of algorithms and data structures comparable to CS280, and sufficient mathematical experience that you can deal with matrices and linear transformations. Math 232 is strongly recommended, but we will actually develop most of the math we need in class. We will focus in this course on fundamentals: how to develop tools and algorithms for image synthesis and (to a lesser extent) animation. Our goal is not to make pretty pictures -- these days people use high-level software for that, but rather to understand how that software works and to make some of it ourselves. By the end of this course you should be able to read some of the current research papers on graphics and to develop new tools on your own.

Syllabus

Online Documentation

 

POVRAY -- The Persistence Of Vision Ray Tracer. This is a high quality public domain ray tracer. You don't actually need it for anything in the course, but you may enjoy playing with it. If nothing else, take a look around the site and check out the sample images created with POVRAY.

 

Example Programs

 

Assignments

 

Other