Course pages 2016–17
Paper 3: Graphics
This course is only taken by Part 1A Paper 3 students.
Lecturer: Dr R.K. Mantiuk
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]