Introduction and Overview CSc 8820: Advanced Graphics Algorithms Introduction and Overview Lecture 01 CSC8820: Advanced Graphics Algorithms

Contact information Office 34 Peachtree Street, Suite 1441 Office hour Tuesdays 3 – 5pm or by appointment Email: yzhu@cs.gsu.edu When sending email to me, please include “csc8820” in the subject line. CSC8820: Advanced Graphics Algorithms

What this course is about In-depth study of selected topics in computer graphics Focus on essential techniques for real-time graphics application Real-time rendering Animation and articulated figures Modeling Visualization Learn how to do research in the field of computer graphics. This is not an introductory computer graphics course. We will not cover a little about everything. Instead we’ll cover a lot about a few things. We will focus on real-time graphics techniques. What is real-time? 30 frame per second or 60 frame per second Along the way you’ll learn how to do research in computer graphics. For example, how to search literatures, how to read research papers, how to write papers, how to identify important research topics, how to identify open problems and select a subject. All of this is not limited to computer graphics and also can be applied to research in general. CSC8820: Advanced Graphics Algorithms

What you are expected to get from this course Obtain a general understanding of state of the art in rendering, animation, and modeling. Obtain a general understanding of various advanced algorithms essential to real-time graphics applications such as 3D games. Develop research, writing, and presentation skills. Will also touch on advanced visualization techniques Study one subject of 3D computer graphics research in depth. Hands-on experience with 3D graphics tools or API. You’ll have an idea what are the major research topics in the computer graphics research. What is the cutting edge technology? What is advanced algorithms? More complex, make use of basic graphics algorithms, better quality visual effects. CSC8820: Advanced Graphics Algorithms

Textbook We will focus on recent research papers in 3D graphics and visualization.

Recommended references Real-time Rendering, 2nd Edition, by Tomas Akenine-Moller and Eric Haines, A K Peters, Ltd., 2002 (ISBN 1-56881-182-9) http://www.realtimerendering.com

Grading plan No Exam Grade Percentage The grading scale is as follows: Class participation and discussion: 10% Research paper presentation: 40% Term project: 50% The grading scale is as follows: A: 90+ B: 80 - 89 C: 70 - 79 D: 60 – 69 F: < 60

Project One programming project One modeling and animation project One (semester long) research project In-depth understanding of one subject in computer graphics Learn how to do research in this field Learn how to write a technical report (i.e. draft of a research paper) Final report due at the end of the semester.

Research Project I will provide a list of topics for you to choose from. You may work on your own idea with my approval. Start early No group work. This is an individual project. One presentation of the term project Will be given in the last lecture

Homework Four homework assignments Pick one research paper Prepare a presentation Present and discuss Learn how to study and evaluate a graphics research paper Learn how to make effective presentations.

Overview Introductions About this course Topics Instructor TA Who are you? About this course Topics Overview of computer graphics research

Tentative topics Shading language Shadow mapping Shadow volume Bump mapping and environment mapping Displacement mapping Water Hair Cloth

Tentative topics Human character animation Physics based animation Terrain visualization Behavioral animation Game AI Autonomous characters

What is Computer Graphics? The word “Computer Graphics” means different things to different people. 3D computer graphics is about generating a 2D image from the definition and interaction of 3D geometry objects. We will focus on real-time 3D interactive computer graphics I.e. Techniques for 3D games & visual simulation Images courtesy Discreet Lord of the Rings CSC8820: Advanced Graphics Algorithms

Major research areas Modeling Animation Rendering How to create and store geometry objects Animation How to manipulate geometry objects Rendering How to generate and display images of geometry objects

Major conferences ACM SIGGRAPH (www.siggraph.org) The single most important conference. IEEE Visualization (vis.computer.org) EUROGRAPH (www.eg.org) Graphics Interface Computer Animation & Virtual World Game Developer Conference And many many more …

Journals and magazines ACM Transaction on Graphics SIGGRAPH papers will be published here. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications Computer Graphics Forum

Journals and magazines ACM Journal of Graphics Tools Computer & Graphics The Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation The Visual Computer Game Developer Magazine

How to search and find papers? http://www.siggraph.org/publications/bibliography/ The most comprehensive database of CG publications Most of the recent journal papers are online Find them through GSU library web page: E-journal Locator www.library.gsu.edu/ejournals/ SIGGRAPH papers since 1974 are also online Go to http://www.library.gsu.edu/ejournals/ and search for “computer graphics” and then click on “computer graphics proceedings …” IEEE Xplore, ACM digital library, SpringerLink

How to search and find papers? Recent graphics papers: http://www.cs.brown.edu/~tor/ http://kesen.huang.googlepages.com/ Search by paper title on Google. Find one of the authors’ homepage. They often have links to their papers.

Influential research groups UNC Chapel Hill (rendering & animation) http://www.cs.unc.edu Stanford University (modeling & rendering) http://graphics.stanford.edu Microsoft Research (everything) http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/graphics/ CalTech (modeling) http://www.gg.caltech.edu/

Influential research groups MIRALab – U of Geneva (animation) http://miralabwww.unige.ch/ U of Toronto (animation) http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/ SUNY Stony Brook (visualization) http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~vislab/ UC Davis (visualization) http://graphics.cs.ucdavis.edu/ INRIA - France (everything) http://www.inria.fr/index.en.html

Major companies Hardware Software NVIDIA (GeForce card, Cg) ATI (Radeon card) 3D Labs (OpenGL, OpenGL Shading Language) Apple SGI (Visualization systems?) Software Microsoft (DirectX) AutoDesk (3D Studio Max, AutoCAD) ALIAS (Maya) SoftImage (SoftImage)

Major companies Movie Game Other Pixar Industrial Light & Magic Electronic Arts Sony Microsoft Other Adobe (2D graphics) SUN (Java3D)