University of Colorado

Department of Computer S ien e

Computer Graphi s
Spring 2003
General Information

Catalog Number: CSCI 4229

Time/Pla e: Tuesdays 5-7:30pm ECCR 110

(room may hange)

Webpage: www. s. olorado.edu/lizb/graphi s.html

Newsgroup: u. ourses. s i4229

Instru tor: Liz Bradley ECOT 524

lizb s. olorado.edu 492 5355

OÆ e Hours: Thursdays 11:30am { 1pm and by appointment

Texts: Intera tive Computer Graphi s: A Top-Down Approa h Using OpenGL,

E. Angel, Addison-Wesley, 2003. 3rd edition!
OpenGL Programming Guide,
Woo et al, Addison-Wesley, 1999

Course Des ription:

This ourse overs the design, analysis, and implementation of modern omputer graphi s
te hniques. We will spend the rst half of the semester be oming graphi s programmers and
the se ond half applying those abilities to interesting problems and appli ations. In order
to a omplish the rst part of this, I plan to over hapters 1{6 of the textbook, in mostly
linear order. This book has a ni e approa h: it tea hes OpenGL, basi graphi s programming
te hniques, and the underlying theory in an intermingled fashion, rather than separating them
out. In the se ond part of the ourse, I will over parts of the other hapters, as well as
sele ted material from the books on reserve and arti les from urrent journals and onferen e
pro eedings.
Syllabus:
Part I. Be oming a graphi s whiz

 overview
 introdu tion to OpenGL
 2D graphing of points and pie ewise-linear things

1
  intera ting with the keyboard and the mouse
 graphi s geometry and transformations
 viewing
{ the amera
{ oordinate systems
{ proje tions
 shading; light; olor

Part II. Being a graphi s whiz

some subset of......

 urves and surfa es

 image-pro essing
 3D modeling
 3D viewing
 fra tals
 s ienti visualization
 animation
 design issues (e.g., Tufte)
 video games
 ???

Philosophy:
This ourse is very mu h a work in progress, and it will evolve as the semester pro eeds,
parti ularly if we all de ide that we're interested in something that's not on the list in Part II
of the syllabus above.
Prerequisites:
The most riti al of this ourse's prerequisites, besides independen e and motivation, is fun -
tional omputer litera y. If you are not totally omfortable programming in C (and/or C++),
you should disenroll yourself, now. A se ond important prerequisite is linear algebra. To do
omputer graphi s, you need to be able to sling ve tors around, take proje tions, multiply ma-
tri es, et . You also need a good grasp of basi CS theory in order to understand the algorithms
used in the eld.

2
Assignments:
I will issue reading assignments, programming problems, and pen il-and-paper exer ises every
tuesday, and they will be due the following tuesday at the beginning of lass. Ea h oding
assignment builds on the previous one, and the whole sequen e is designed to give you the
tools to build a real video game at the end of the semester. Homework ode will be submitted
via the BOSS program. Logisti s are still being worked out, and will be posted on the lass
newsgroup later this week. You will submit sour e; we will ompile and run it. We will not
grade your oding style.
We will also do in- lass problems, whi h will build on the previous week's homework and serve
as a jumping-o point for the next week's assignment. These will be based on ode 'stubs' that
I post on the website | often, the solutions to the previous week's assignment. This means
that late programming problems will not be a epted .
I will give short quizzes (30-45 min) roughly on e a month, probably on 2/18, 3/18, and 4/22.
Ea h will ount as mu h as one of the weekly problem sets.
I plan to work the homework and quiz timing around Senior Proje t deadlines and will be
asking about those dates next week, after the enrollment has settled out.
You are free to work together on homework during the initial problem-solving stages, but you
should nish, polish, interpret, and write up your work on your own. You should also feel free to
onsult me or the other lass members for lari ations, orroboration, suggestions, debugging
help, et ., at any point in any assignment, in person, via email, or via the newsgroup. Please
do not arry this to the point where you avoid learning from the assignments. In parti ular,
the nal, turned-in version of all assignments should be your own work. Identi al material
will garner a zero grade for that assignment, and possibly a dis ussion with the Honor Code
Coun il1, for all of the people involved, regardless of who opied from whom. Be aware that
the BOSS auto-submission system has plagiarism dete tion fa ilities.

Computers:
The linux boxes in ECCH 105 have an open-sour e version of OpenGL (Mesa) installed on them.
A ounts on these omputers have already been set up for everyone who was preregistered for
the ourse. Login ards for new users will be distributed the rst day of lass; if you miss that,
you may bring your BuOne ard to the CSops oÆ e in the basement of the lassroom wing
(ECCR 1B09) to pi k up your login. You an get your a ess ard validated by visiting the
CSops oÆ e or http://www-ugrad. s. olorado.edu/ ardform.html.
You may install and run OpenGL on your own ma hine, but your submitted ode must ompile
and run on the ECCH 105 ma hines.

Grades:
Grades will be based on the homework and quizzes (with the lowest HW dropped),  one full
letter grade based on your ontribution to lass dis ussions, whi h in ludes ase studies. The 
ee t ki ks in only above the passing threshold: lass parti ipation will not be used to hange
Fs into Ds or vi e versa.

1
http://www. olorado.edu/a ademi s/honor ode/

3
Materials on Reserve in the Gemill Engineering Library:
1. Seminal Graphi s: Pioneering Eorts that Shaped the Field, ACM Press, 1998.
2. OpenGL Referen e Manual: The OÆ ial Referen e Do ument to OpenGL, OpenGL Ar-
hite ture Review Board, Addison-Wesley, 2000.
3. SIGGRAPH pro eedings, 1993{1999.
4. Graphi s Gems, A ademi Press, Boston, 1990{1995.
5. E. Angel, Intera tive Computer Graphi s: A Top-Down Approa h with OpenGL, Addison-
Wesley, 2000.
6. J. Foley et al., Computer Graphi s: Prin iples and Pra ti e, Addison-Wesley, 1996.
7. L. Giannetti et al., Understanding Movies, 7th edition, Prenti e-Hall, 1996.
8. D. Hearn and M. Baker, Computer Graphi s, Prenti e-Hall, 1994.
9. F. Hill, Computer Graphi s using Open GL, se ond edition, Prenti e-Hall, 2001.
10. I. Kerlow, The Art of 3-D Computer Animation and Imaging, Van Nostrand Reinhold,
1996.
11. M. Mortenson, Geometri Modeling, Wiley, 1997.
12. F. Preparata and M. Shamos, Computational Geometry: An Introdu tion, Springer-
Verlag, 1985.
13. E. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphi s Press, Cheshire CT,
1983.
14. E. Tufte, Envisioning Information, Graphi s Press, Cheshire CT, 1990.
15. E. Tufte, Visual Explanations : Images and Quantities, Eviden e and Narrative, Graphi s
Press, Cheshire CT, 1997.
16. A. Watt and M. Watt, Advan ed Animation and Rendering Te hniques, Addison-Wesley,
1992.

4
Priva y and Grade Dis losure:

If you want me to post your homework, quiz, and overall grades on the ourse webpage,

please read, sign, and return this statement. (Feel free to xxxx out any of the above you

don't want posted.)

Professor Elizabeth Bradley has my permission to post my CSCI 4229/5229

grades for the spring semester of 2003, listed by the last six digits of my so ial

se urity number, on this publi ally a essible website:

http://www. s. olorado.edu/lizb/graphi s/grades.html

signature date

name (printed)