This is the home page for CS 417 which deals with computer graphics and scientific visualization at the level of Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice by Foley et.al., or 3D Computer Graphics by Alan Watt. CS 417 was taught by Bruce Land, who was also the Project Leader for the Visualization Group at the Cornell Theory Center.

• Course summary
• Administrivia: Textbook errors, Homework, Staff, Schedule
• Other graphics courses

Computer graphics is a topic that requires mathematical, programming, and artistic skills, among others. The content of the computer graphics fundamentals course at Cornell focuses on mathematical skills. The associated lab course, CS418, is a programming course designed to help illuminate the math.

The course covers the following topics (but not all in the same year):

• Construction of surfaces
  • Explicit polygon lists
  • Parametric operations
    • quadric surfaces
    • figure of rotation simulator
    • swept surfaces
    • tensor-product surfaces Bezier Patch simulator
    • A parametric surface builder
      
  • Implicit Surfaces
    • quadric surfaces
    • blobby models
    • CSG operations demo
    • surface tesselation
  • Computing a surface normal
  • Hierarchical grouping of simple objects to form complex surfaces.
• Scene composition and animation
  • Introduction to homogeneous coordinates
  • Geometric transforms
    • building objects
    • kinematic animation
  • Hierarchical modeling
    • combining prototype objects
      
    • mimic connected rigid parts
    • inverse kinematics demo
  • Dynamical systems and animation
    • Differential equations
    • Cellular automata
      A 2D fire CA.
      Conway's life CA.
      A 1D CA.
      
• Viewing of a group of objects
  A camera simulator
  • Camera transforms
  • Clipping to a view volume
  • Projection onto a 2D screen
    • parallel projection
    • perspective projection
  • Stereo vision
• Rendering
  • Shading/lighting
    • human color vision
      Mach banding simulator
    • color device limitations
    • light: geometric optics and waves
    • Gourand and Phong shading
      Phong illumination intensity simulator
  • Hidden surface removal
    • Z-buffer
    • transparency and shadows
  • Scan-conversion and Anti-aliasing
    • polygons to pixels
    • human vernier hyper-acuity
    • image space methods demo
    • object space methods
  • Surface property modifications
    • texture-mapping demo
    • bump-mapping
    • volume textures
• Modeling of scientific data for scientific visualization.
  A visualization tutorial
  • Aspects of scientific data
    • dimensionality of fields
    • scalar and vector fields
    • objects (e.g. walls of a channel)
  • Scalar fields
    • contour lines and surfaces
    • colors and color misperception
    • volume rendering
  • Vector fields
    • difficulties
    • "arrows"
    • field lines
    • particle advection
  • Multiparameter and High-dimensional data
  • Dynamic systems

• Class policy Read this!

• Reading 3D Computer graphics by Alan Watt.
  • Errors in the Textbook.
  • week of 1/19 -- Chapter 1 and 2
  • week of 1/26 -- Chapter 6.4
    
  • Chapter 9.1-9.3 -- week of 2/2
  • Chapter 3.1 to 3.8 especially 3.4 to 3.8 -- week of 2/16
  • Chapter 4.1-4.7 -- week of 3/2
  • Chapter 5 -- week of 3/9
  • Chapter 7 -- week of 3/30
  • Chapter 14

• Homework assignments

  1. Due 28 Jan 1998

  2. Due 4 Feb 1998

  3. Due 11 Feb 1998

  4. Due 18 Feb 1998

  5. Due 4 march 1998

  6. Due 11 march 1998

  7. Due 25 march 1998

  8. Due 8 April 1998

  9. Due 15 April 1998

  • Old assignments and tests.

• Course Schedule

  
  

• Staff
  • Bruce Land,
    606 Rhodes, 4-8756, bruce@tc.cornell.edu
    Office hours: 10:15-12:00 and 1-1:30 Tuesdays, room 606 Rhodes. and 1-3pm Thursday in Phillips digital lab.

• University of California at Davis
• Georgia Tech
• Stanford - Levoy
• Stanford - Hanrahan
• Washington
• Washington - Numerical Methods in graphics
• University of Wales College of Cardiff
• University of Manchester
• Oregon State University

All NEW for Spring 1998!!
(well, actually, just slightly different than last year)

Copyright 1999 Cornell University