Recent news

July 2:

• "Best of P3" (click to enlarge). Awesome work, thanks all for participating!

July 1:

• P3 grades have been uploaded - respond ASAP if you spot a problem.
• T2 grades and course overview has been uploaded - respond ASAP if there is a problem.

Course: "Graphics" is an introductory course about computer graphics. Computer graphics deals with the algorithmic processing of visual (images) and spatial (geometry) data. The course will focus on the very basics of modeling and rendering, i.e., the mathematical description of three-dimensional scenes and how to create (realistic) images of such models.

Rendering Algorithms: We have several options to convert the mathematical representation of a virtual world into a digital image. Modern games typically rely on the z-buffer algorithm. An alternative approach is ray tracing. In this course we will explore both methods. Ray tracing allows us to produce 'correct' images; rasterization lets us approximate this in real-time.

Math: An important aspect of computer graphics is the use of mathematics. This course provides a short coverage of the mathematical basics needed for rendering. We will introduce fundamental concepts of linear algebra and other areas of higher mathematics that are important far beyond the field of graphics.

The lecture will be given in Dutch.

Het officiële rooster is beschikbaar via Osiris. officiële cursusinformatie via www.cs.uu.nl. Klik hier voor de lijst van studenten voor dit vak.

Lecturer: Jacco Bikker (j.bikker@uu.nl)

Teaching Assistants:

Practicals

• Gerben Aalvanger
  
• Hugo Hogenbirk
  
• Bruno dos Santos Carvalhal
  
• Casper Schouls
  
• Sam van der Wal
  

• Tuesdays, 09:00h - 10:45h,
  Room KBG-COSMOS (starting week #17)
  
• Thursdays, 13:15h - 15:00h,
  Room KBG-COSMOS (starting week #17)

Practicals tutorial/consultation hours

• Practical tutorials are offered after the lectures on Tuesdays.
• Room allocation is complex; see schedule.
• Practical tutorials start on Tue May 3 (second week of the course).
  

Below is a list of all lectures with a very brief summary of the topics, slides downloads, and recommended readings to prepare for the lecture.

Midterm Exam: Tue May 24 2016, 11:00-13:00 in EDUC-GAMMA.

What to study: Slides for lectures 1-7, suggested readings for these lectures, tutorials 1 and 2.

For this exam, you are not allowed to bring notes.

Final Exam: Thu June 30 2016, 17:00-20:00, in EDUC-BETA.

Retake Exam: Thu July 14 2016, 13:30-16:30, in OLYMPUS-M.BUITING

Period 4 Schedule

Overview

During the course we will hand out tutorial sheets.

• The tutorials cover the theoretical aspects of the lecture.
• There will be several (~5) assignment sheets throughout the semester. It is expected that you work on them in self studies. Please take this seriously! You will need the practice!
• This year there are no supervised tutorials (despite what Osiris may tell you). You can ask questions about the tutorials during the working colleges instead.
• The tutorials are a very good preparation for the midterm and final exam.
  Reading the textbook and attending the lectures is a good idea, but you can only be sure that you understood the material if you succeed in solving the assignments. The assignments in the tutorials will be very much like what you can expect in the written tests.
  

Assignment Sheets / Downloads

• T1 - Basic maths / math recap / vectors (and solutions)
• T2 - Geometry (and solutions)
• T3 - Matrices and transforms (and solutions)
  
• T4 - Perspective (and solutions)
  
• T5 - Clipping (and solutions)
  

PRACTICAL ASSIGNMENTS

There will be three practical assignments, covering traditional rasterization algorithms, shaders and ray tracing. The first assignment will be online on Tuesday, April 26. We recommend that you start working on it right away.

Practicals tutorial/consultation hours

On Tuesdays, teaching assistants will be present in various rooms to help you if you have questions. These practical tutorials are offered after the lectures on Tuesdays. Please see the schedule for a list of available rooms for each week.

Remarks:

• Additional rooms are typically available. In these rooms, no TA is present, but the room is reserved for this course, so you may use it if you need the hardware / software.
• Practical tutorials start on Tue May 3 (second week of the course).
• We might adapt the consultation hours (extend before deadlines, shorten elsewhere).

Important Rules

Because of the large group of students taking this lecture, we need strict rules to keep everything manageable. The most important rules are listed below. Further explanations might be given during the lecture.

• Grading: You have to hand in all practical assignments. Your grade from the practicals has to be at least 5.0 to pass this course (cf. exams & grading).
• Working in teams: The programming assignments must be done in groups of 2 or 3 students. If you submit alone without prior consultation with the course instructor, the grade of your submission will be reduced by 1.0.
  • Building groups: You can choose your partner(s) yourself among your fellow students. If you ca not find one on your own, contact one of the TAs during the practical consultation hours. They will help you to team up with other students.
  • If your partner drops the course: contact the instructor immediately. You will either be assigned a new partner or be allowed to work alone without penalty. Working alone without prior consultation reduces your grade.
  • Project team responsibility: It is up to you how you split the work among your team members. However, this freedom comes at the price that you have to be prepared for situations such as team members dropping the course or not delivering what they promised to you. It is your responsibility to make sure that you are aware of your team's progress, so you can react to such issues in an appropriate way.
    
• Students doing the course a second time: For this year's course, the practicals have been redesigned. As a consequence, you cannot reuse last year's results.

Soft- / Hardware and Infrastructure:

• Required equipment: For the practicals, you need a Windows PC with Visual Studio. The free Community Edition of Visual Studio is a good platform for C# development. We will be using OpenTK to access OpenGL from C#. This is also free software.
  
• Alternative platforms: For this course, support will be mostly limited to Microsoft Windows and C#. You may of course use alternative platforms and programming languages, but an appropriate level of autonomy is expected in that case.
  
• All necessary hard- and software is installed on the computers in the reserved rooms.
• "Groep indeling" and TA-support: Ignore the "groep indeling" on OSIRIS. There are no groups other than the teams you form with your fellow students, and there are no fixed time slots where you have to be present.
  
  

Forum:

There is an online discussion forum where the TAs and lecturer answer your questions (this is a best-effort offer; no guarantees; in particular, close to deadlines):

www.projects.science.uu.nl/gmt

You can also join us on Slack using your @uu.nl address:

infogr2016.slack.com

Assignments:

Assignment P1: OpenTK Tutorial
Assignment P2: Ray Tracing
Assignment P3: Advanced shaders

GRADING

Programming assignments: There will be three programming assignments throughout the semester. The final grading P for your programming assignments makes up 1/3 of your overall grade for this course. It is calculated as follows: P=0.2*P1+0.4*P2+0.4*P3. P must be at least 5.0 (before rounding) to pass the course.

Exams: There will be a midterm exam T1 and a final exam T2. The final grading T for your exams makes up 2/3 of your overall grade for this course. It is calculated as follows: T = 0.5*T1 + 0.5*T2. T must be at least 5.0 (before rounding) to pass the course.

Final grade: If both T (= the grade for the written exams) and P (= the programming grade) are at least 5.0, the final grade for the course is (2T + P) / 3. Your final grade must be at least 6 (after rounding) to pass the course.

RETAKES AND REQUIREMENTS

If you did not pass the course but your final grade for the course is at least 4.0 (before rounding), you are entitled to participate in a retake. This can either be a retake assignment or a retake exam.

Retake (exam) T3: This exam will cover all lectures and tutorials. The result from your retake exam T3 will replace the lower one of your original scores, i.e. either T1 or T2 if and only if it improves your final grade. Criteria for passing stay the same as indicated above (i.e. P and T must be at least 5.0 before rounding, and your final grade must be at least 6 after rounding). 

Retake (practicals): There will be one retake assignment that can replace either P1, P2, or P3 if it improves your final grade. The topic for the retake assignment is decided individually. To get your assignment and related deadlines, contact the instructor.

Exceptions: Exceptions to these rules in principle always require involvement of the study coach.

Results

To be released.

Textbook:

• The textbook of this course is Fundamentals of Computer Graphics by Peter Shirley et al.. The course is designed based on the 3rd edition of the book. Since the basics (which we are covering) did not change that much, older editions might work, too (no promises).
• Here is the web page of the text book.

Additional resources for the practicals:

Resources that might be helpful, especially for programming assignment 2 and 3:

• Some free books on the developer section of NVIDIA's website:
  GPU Gems 3, GPU Gems 2, GPU Gems 1.
  
• A (quite extensive) tutorial on ray tracing:
  Codermind Team Ray Tracing Tutorial
• A somewhat old ray tracing tutorial:
  Ray Tracing Topics & Techniques
• Other resources will be added during the course.
  

Web references:

• Department website: INFOGR-2013/14
• 2013 Graphics course, held by Wolfgang Hürst
• 2014 Graphics course, held by Michael Wand
• 2015 Graphics course, held by Jacco Bikker

Old posts

June 30:

• Exam with notes can be downloaded by clicking here.

June 21:

• Slides for the Grand Recap can now be downloaded.
• Solutions for T3, T4 and T5 are now accessible.
  

June 16:

• Slides for lecture 13 ("Ground Truth") are now available.
• Updated P3 assignment with post processing challenges.
  

June 14:

• Slides for lecture 12 ("Post-processing") are now available.
• Updated P3 template with post processing functionality.
• Final math tutorial sheet can now be downloaded.
  

June 9:

• Slides for lecture 11 ("Visibility") are now available.

June 8:

• Grades for P2 ("Ray Tracing") are now available.
• "Best of P2" (click to enlarge, best watched with this background music):

June 7:

• Math tutorial sheet T4 has been uploaded.
• Today's slides have been uploaded.

June 2:

• Fix for the P3 template to be not as culture sensitive (thanks Mathijs!).
• Slides for today's lecture ("Transformations") have been uploaded.
  

June 1:

• Math tutorial sheet T3 has been uploaded.

May 31:

• Slides for lecture 8 are now available for download.
• Assignment P3 is now available.
  

May 25:

• Mid-term exam grades are ready.

May 24:

• Exam with solutions.

May 19:

• Grades for P1 (in .xlsx format) can be downloaded via this link.
• Slides for lecture 7 are now online.
  

May 18:

• Solutions for second math tutorial sheet now available.

May 17:

• Example mid-term exam: check here.
• Slides for the illegally long lecture 6.
  

May 12:

• Second math tutorial sheet now available.
• Slides for lecture 5 ("ray tracing (3)") now available.
• Some fixes to the solutions for math tutorial 1, thanks timsmit1997.

May 10:

• Slides for lecture 4 ("ray tracing (2)") now available.
• Solutions for first math tutorial sheet have been uploaded.
  

May 4:

• Assignment 2 details now available.

May 3:

• Slides for lecture 3 ("ray tracing introduction") are online.

April 26:

• First math tutorial sheet is now available.
• Slides for lecture 2 ("rasters, vectors, colors") are online.
  

April 26:

• Slides for lecture 1 ("introduction") now available for download.

April 25:

• Assignment P1 details now available.

April 22:

• Slack team created: infogr2016.slack.com .
• Forum link updated: www.projects.science.uu.nl/gmt .
  

April 4:

• Initial version of the 2015/2016 website.