The course provides an introduction to computer graphics. The material covers fundamental concepts and techniques including: rasterization, sampling, image/signal processing basics, convolutions, coordinate spaces, transformations, camera viewing, 3D transformations, ray tracing, 3D processing, parameterization, animation/deformations, and more.

Logistics

  • Canvas
  • Course Meetings: Tuesday & Thursday, 3:30 - 4:50pm CST
  • Course Communication: all outside-of-class-meeting course communication will occur on the UChicago Intro to Computer Graphics Slack
  • Office hours:
    • Richard 4-5 PM Monday (JCL 267)
    • Will 230-330 PM Wednesday (JCL 236)
    • Rana 3-4 PM Friday (JCL 369)

Grading

  • 15% Assignment 1: Rasterization
  • 15% Assignment 2: Camera Viewpoint Geometry
  • 15% Assignment 3: Mesh Data Structures
  • 15% Assignment 4: Skinning and Rigging
  • 35% Final Project: Animation-Off
  • 5% Class participation / attendance

Late assignments. Programming assignments will be penalized 0.007% per minute late (approximately 10% per day). After 3 days the assignment will no longer be accepted. Assignments are given in advance with enough notice, so please plan accordingly.

Academic Honesty. All assignments will be individual. Do not discuss or share your solutions/code with other students, don't post solutions online and do not copy from existing code bases online. This class adheres to the same policies outlined in CMSC 12100.

Course Schedule

Week Date Topic Materials
1 Tues March 29 Intro & Motivation slides
Thurs March 31 Triangles & Rasterization slides
2 Tues April 5 Coordinate Spaces & Transformations slides
Thurs April 7 Rotations slides
3 Tues April 12 3D viewing and textures slides
Thurs April 14 Depth and transparency slides
4 Tues April 19 Intro to geometry slides
Thurs April 21 Meshes slides
5 Tues April 26 Geometry Processing slides
Thurs April 28 Geometric Queries slides
6 Tues May 3 Mesh Parameterization slides
Thurs May 5 Intro to Animation and Keyframing slides
7 Tues May 10 Heirachical Rigging slides
Thurs May 12 Skinning slides
8 Tues May 17 My Research --
Thurs May 19 Recitation / Lab [time to work on assignments & ask qs] --
9 Tues May 24 Recitation / Lab [time to work on assignments & ask qs] --
Thurs May 26 Wrap-Up slides
Fri June 3 Animation-Off! see the winners!

Useful Resources

There is no required textbook, though the following may provide good supplementary material:

  • Fundamentals of Computer Graphics. Steve Marschner and Pete Shirley 2021

Instructional Team
Rana Hanocka Will Gao Richard Liu Kate Hu