Computer Laboratory

Course pages 2016–17

Graphics

Principal lecturer: Dr Rafal Mantiuk
Taken by: Part IA CST 75%
Past exam questions

No. of lectures and practical classes: 8 + 7
Suggested hours of supervisions: 2
Prerequisite courses: None
This course is a prerequisite for Advanced Graphics

Aims

To introduce the necessary background, the basic algorithms, and the applications of computer graphics and graphics hardware.

Lectures

  • Background. What is an image? Human vision. Resolution and quantisation. Storage of images in memory. [1 lecture]

  • Rendering. Perspective. Reflection of light from surfaces and shading. Geometric models. Ray tracing. [3 lectures]

  • Graphics pipeline. Polygonal mesh models. Transformations using matrices in 2D and 3D. Homogeneous coordinates. Projection: orthographic and perspective. [1 lecture]

  • Graphics hardware and modern OpenGL. Vertex processing. Rasterisation. Fragment processing. Working with meshes and textures. [2 lectures]

  • Technology. Colour spaces. Output devices: brief overview of display and printer technologies. [1 lecture]

Objectives

By the end of the course students should be able to:

  • understand and apply in practice basic concepts of ray-tracing: ray-object intersection, reflections, refraction, shadow rays, distributed ray-tracing, direct and indirect illumination;

  • describe and explain the following algorithms: Gouraud and Phong shading, z-buffer, texture mapping, double buffering, mip-map, bump- and normal-mapping;

  • use matrices and homogeneous coordinates to represent and perform 2D and 3D transformations; understand and use 3D to 2D projection, the viewing volume, and 3D clipping;

  • implement OpenGL code for rendering of polygonal objects, control camera and lighting, work with vertex and fragment shaders;

  • describe a number of colour spaces and their relative merits; explain the workings of two display and printer technologies.

Recommended reading

* Shirley, P. & Marschner, S. (2009). Fundamentals of Computer Graphics. CRC Press (3rd ed.).

Foley, J.D., van Dam, A., Feiner, S.K. & Hughes, J.F. (1990). Computer graphics: principles and practice. Addison-Wesley (2nd ed.).

Kessenich, J.M., Sellers, G. and Shreiner, D (2016). OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 4.5 with SPIR-V. [seventh edition and later]