This course will gives a broad overview of the field of computer graphics, covering the fundamental concepts and mathematics as well as a selection of more advanced topics. Students will learn about rasterization and ray tracing, homogeneous and perspective transforms, object representations, illumination models, basic GPU architecture, and so forth.  
 

Textbook

"Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-Down Approach With Shader-Based OpenGL" by Edward Angel and Dave Shreiner; Addison-Wesley, 6th edition. Link  
 

Recommended Reading

"Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics" by Eric Lengyel; Course Technology PTR, 3rd edition. Link

"Real-Time Rendering" by Tomas Akenine-Möller, Eric Haines, and Naty Hoffman; AK Peters, 3rd edition. Link  
 

Grading

1. The final grade will be compiled from two midterms (2 x 10%), a final exam (20%), and 4 programming assignments (4 x 15%).
 

2. Each programming assignment will be graded on correctness (60%), efficiency (20%), programming style (10%), and user interface (5%). The remaining 5% is earned by submitting an image of your program's output, which will be put up in a gallery. Exceptional cleverness, artistic merit, and/or rendering techniques can earn bonus points. (This is graphics, afterall!)
 

3. It is recommended that you work in pairs for each project, but it is not a requirement. Grades in a pair will not necessarily be equal; each student's relative contribution will be taken into account.
 

4. Projects should be completed on time! To allow for unexpected complications, each student has a total of 4 slip days (24-hour grace periods) that can be allocated however he/she chooses between the projects. If an assignment is turned in late and a student has run out of slip days, it is worth no points.
   
 

5. UT's rules of academic integrity apply, and violations will be dealt with harshly. A full description of the policy can be found here.

Course Calendar (subject to change)
 

Date	Lectures	Assignments
August 25	Syllabus, grading, graphics history
August 30	Image formation and the graphics pipeline
September 1	Programming in OpenGL and GLUT	Project 1: Assignment, Code
September 6	Vectors and matrices, coordinate systems, and geometry
September 8	Transformations 1: Affine transforms and homogeneous coordinates
September 13	Transformations 2: Rotations
September 15	Transformations 3: Projections and perspective	Project 1 due
September 20	Clipping, rasterization, visibility determination, blending
September 22	Objects 1: Meshes and procedural modeling	Project 2: Assignment, Code
September 27	Objects 2: Parameterized curves and splines
September 29	Objects 3: Surfaces (parameterized, subdivision, and implicit)
October 4	Color and perception
October 6	Shading 1: Basic lighting	Project 2 due
October 11	Shading 2: Texturing	Practice Midterm I (Solutions)
October 13	MIDTERM I -- IN CLASS (Solutions)
October 18	Shading 3: Ray tracing
October 20	Shading 4: Texturing tricks	Project 3: Assignment, Code, Scenes
October 25	Shading 5: Shadows
October 27	Shading 6: Global illumination
November 1	Shaders and programmable graphics hardware
November 3	GPU architecture
November 8	Acceleration 1: BSP trees, KD-trees, and Bounding Volume Hierarchies	Practice Midterm II (Solutions)
November 10	Acceleration 2: Level of detail, occlusion culling	Project 3 due
November 15	Special topics: physics and graphics
November 17	MIDTERM II -- IN CLASS (Solutions)	Project 4: Assignment, Code, Examples
November 22	Special topics: character animation
November 24	Thanksgiving holiday
November 29	Special topics: Non-photorealistic rendering
December 1	FINAL EXAM -- IN CLASS	Project 4 due