How To Teach Computer Graphics

Computer Graphics

Lecture 1:

 Introduction (basic administrative information)

 Course Overview + Examples (a.o. Pixar, Blender, …)

Thilo Kielmann

General Introduction

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~graphics/

The Course in a Nutshell (1)

 Lecture period: October 29 - December 13

 Monday: 15:30 – 17:15; Room: S3.29

 Thursday: 11:00 – 12:45; Room: S3.29

 Book:

 E. Angel/D. Shreiner

Interactive Computer Graphics, 6

ed. (new!!!)

 Get it from STORM or the VU Boekhandel

 Grading:

 Homework (1/4) and assignment / project (3/4)

The Course in a Nutshell (2)

 New book: 6

edition

 Radical switch from OpenGL 2.x to OpenGL 3.x:

 State-of-the-art in graphics/games programming

 All rendering becomes explicit, no more “black boxes”

 This takes more effort (worth it, we hope!)

http://http.download.nvidia.com/nvision2008/jamie_adam/Art_Science_GPU_480p.mp4

The Course in a Nutshell (2)

 Lecturer:

 Thilo Kielmann ([email protected])

 Course Assistant (also for assignment / project):

 Ben van Werkhoven ([email protected])

 Guest Lecture:



The Course in a Nutshell (3)

 Lectures (period 2):

 Part presentation of course material

 Part hands-on session

 Programming on Windows PCs in S3.29

 Using your own laptop/PC is strongly encouraged

 Needs to support OpenGL 3.x (or higher)

• Check out on the course Web site (“Material”)

 Assignment / Project (period 2 + 3):

 Programming in Java with OpenGL (note: book uses C/C++)

 Web:

 Course information: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~graphics/

Registration & Dates

 Registration (mandatory):

 Via the VUnet portal

 For the course

 Dates:

 Assignment / Project: submit no later than Febuary 1, 2013 (no extensions will be given)

 Homework assignments: will be announced soon

Homework Assignments

● Instead of written exam:

● 3 homework assignments during the course

●

submit via blackboard

●

slack days:

●

you have a total of 5 days credit for late submission (spend them wisely!)

●

each calendar day beyond your credits

subtracts 1 from the assignment's grade

Grades for the Course

● H = average grade of three homeworks

● P = project grade

● Score = H *1/4 + P * 3/4

● Passing requirements:

●

H > 5.0, P > 5.0, Score >= 6.0

● Exam from 2011 (or older) good for H

● Project from 2011 (or older) good for P

General Overview

And now: Computer Graphics…!

 What is ‘Computer Graphics’?

 “generation/representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer”

 Mostly: image generation on the basis of (mathematical) models or other data

 Related - but not identical - to ‘Digital Image Processing’

 Mostly: image content adaptation and/or

analysis of image content

Where do we find Computer Graphics?

 Display of information

 Scientific Visualization, …

 Design

 Computer-Aided Design, …

 Simulation and Animation

 Virtual Reality, Games, …

 User Interfaces

 Windowing Systems, …

 … but today maybe no longer in 2D

How we will do it… (course outline 1/6)

 Introduction

 Lecture01: General overview & Graphics Systems (today)

 Graphics Programming

 Lecture02: Basic OpenGL, Shaders in a Nutshell

 Lecture03: Input, Events, 3D Graphics

How we will do it… (course outline 2/6)

 Geometric Objects and Transformations

 Lecture04: Basics of Coordinate Systems / Affine Transformations

 Lecture05: Rotation / Translation / Scaling / Shear, …

How we will do it… (course outline 3/6)



Viewing, Lighting, Shading



Lecture06/07: Camera Positioning / Projections



Lecture08: Light and Matter

Start of programming project

(+/- 20 Nov)

How we will do it… (course outline 4/6)



Modeling and Hierarchy



Lecture09: Trees, Scene Graphs

How we will do it… (course outline 5/6)



From Vertices to Fragments

– Lecture10: Geometry Processing, Rasterization, Clipping, …



Discrete Techniques

– Lecture11: Texture Mapping, Texture and Shaders

How we will do it… (course outline 6/6)



Advanced Topics

 Lecture12: Terrain Generation / Height Maps

 Guest lecture (13)

– Tom van der Schaaf

 Open session (Lecture 14) – Post processing

– General Q&A session

How many scientists do it…

 Example:

How the ‘big guys’ do it…

 ‘Sintel’ (Blender Foundation, 2010)

 Movie (Youtube)

 Making of (Youtube)

 Focus on the project, the artists, story writing...

How the (really) ‘big guys’ do it…

 Pixar Website:

 http://www.pixar.com/behind_the_scenes

How the ‘big guys’ do it…

 Realize:

 Huge group of artists, animators, CG specialists, …

 Huge set of high-performance computers …

 Huge amount of time spent on minute details …

 Huge budgets …

 …

 We will not come close in just 2-3 months

 But the fun is the same …

 … or so it should be!

How our students did it (2011)…

 Hall of Fame:

 …/graphics/halloffame2011.php

 Example student projects

 Fancy terrains

 Car with lights by night

 …

Student Feedback 2011

Student Feedback 2011

no more exam!

?

please ask if you need

more math explained

Remaining Outline for Today

 Graphics Systems Architectures

 High-end (and low-end) Graphics Systems

 Hands-on Session:

 Initial setup of Java, OpenGL, Eclipse

 Install example application

 Compile & Play

 Encouraged: use of own laptop/PC

• (if your hardware is up-to-date)

Graphics Systems Architectures

Graphics Systems Architectures

 High-level view:

 Five major elements in a graphics system:

Raster Graphics

 Pictures / images are raster-based

 In general: 2D array of pixels, each having n bits

 Pixels stored in part of memory called ‘frame buffer’

 Often special type of memory chips

 Defines ‘resolution’ & ‘depth’ (precision)

 Often: multiple buffers

Graphics Architectures

 Early:

 More modern:

Graphics Architectures

 Really Modern (GPU):

 Very complex

 Highly parallel

 Example:

 Image analysis on GPU-clusters

Pipeline Architectures

 The most important architecture we are dealing with:

 Multiple ‘images’ in progress at the same time

 Works well because we continuously have to apply the same set of operations on (different) data sets

Vertices Primitives Fragments

Programmable Pipelines

 With OpenGL 3.x we are getting:

Vertex shader

e.g., Java

High-End Graphics (1)

 Tiled Video Wall (IC Wall)

High-End Graphics (2)

 CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment

High-End Graphics (2)

 Inside a CAVE

 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sf6bJjwSCE&feature=relmfu

“Low-End” Graphics

OpenGL ES

● for Embedded systems (mostly phones...)

● subset of desktop OpenGL

● OpenGL ES 2.X enables full

programmable 3D graphics

Hands-on Session

 A cross-platform Application Programming Interface (API) for producing 2D and 3D computer graphics

 Developed by Silicon Graphics Inc. (1992)

 See: http://www.opengl.org

 NOTE: We use the Java binding for OpenGL: JOGL

 http://jogamp.org/jogl/www/

 http://download.java.net/media/jogl/www/

“Old School” OpenGL 2.x

AWT

core GL functionality

interfacing the

windowing system and operating system

higher-level abstractions

+ much functionality readily available

- strict/limited functionality

“New School” OpenGL 3.x

your own lib

AWT

new, smaller core GL functionality

interfacing the

windowing system snd operating system

“DIY” of old GLU/GL functionality

+ flexibility (e.g., by your own shaders)

Hands-on Session

 Initial setup of Java, OpenGL, Eclipse & example apps.

 See link:

 http://www.cs.vu.nl/~graphics/material.php

 Compile & play

– In display , change the order of the 3 triangles

 VU-local JavaDoc:

 JOGL: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~graphics/javadoc/

 our own “lib”: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~graphics/doc/

 Encouraged: use of your own laptop/PC

Theory: Book Chapter 1

 Sections:

 1.1, 1.2, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9

 And in particular also:

 Course administrative information