Recent news

June 14:

• Today's lecture slides on visibility now online.

June 12:

• Lecture 12, "Shading", now online.

June 11:

• Solutions for Tutorial 5 now available.
• Bonus tutorial exercises on the pipeline now available.
  

June 7:

• Slides for today's lecture 11 now available.
  

June 6:

• Results for the ray tracing assignment are in, click here to view.
  

June 5:

• Tutorial sheet 6 now available.
• Lecture slides for the final math lecture now online.
• Lecture 9 slides updated.
• Leaked Tutorial 4 solutions.
  

May 31:

• Assignment P3 now available. Will be discussed next week.
• Tutorial sheet 5 ready for download.
• Today's math slides are available now.
• Extended midterm math solutions: click here.
  

May 30:

• Patched Tutorial 4.

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 language for this course will be English.

The official schedule for this course is available on Osiris. Official course information via www.cs.uu.nl. And here is a list of participants.

Lecturers:

• Graphics theory: Jacco Bikker (j.bikker@uu.nl) 
  
• Mathematics: Debabrata Panja (d.panja@uu.nl)

Teaching Assistants:

Practicals

• Federico D'Ambrosio
  
• Mark Dekker
  
• Kylian Kuijer
  
• Sander Vanheste
  
• Rik van Toor
• Ozer Ulusoy
• Carlijn Nijhuis
  

Lecture:

• Tuesdays, 09:00h - 10:45h,
  Room RUPPERT-BLAUW
  
• Thursdays, 13:15h - 15:00h,
  Room KBG-PANGEA

Practicals tutorial/consultation hours

• Math tutorials are offered after the math lectures (first three lectures and three lectures after the midterm exam).
• Working colleges take place after all other lectures.
  
• Room allocation for tutorials and practicals is complex; see schedule.

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 22, 08:30-10:30 in EDUC-BETA.

What to study: Slides for lectures 1-7, suggested readings for these lectures, tutorials 1, 2 and 3. You may also want to take a look at the 2016 and 2017 midterm exam. And maybe you even find the 2015 midterm exam useful. Note that this year's tutorials are a better indication of what to expect in terms of math questions!

For this exam, you are not allowed to bring notes. Calculators, phones and smartwatches are also prohibited.

Please download a practice exam by clicking here. Answers are now also available. Some notes:

• The idea is that you complete these questions in two hours.
• Solutions to verify your results will be posted on Thursday.
• The practice exam does not include theory questions. The real exam will include these!

Final Exam: Thu June 28, 13:30-16:30, in EDUC-BETA.

Retake Exam: Thu July 12, 13:30-16:30, in EDUC-ALFA.

Period 4 Schedule

Overview

During the course we will hand out tutorial sheets.

• The tutorials cover the mathematical aspects of the course.
• There will be several problem sheets throughout the semester. It is expected that you work on these at home and during the tutorial sessions. Please take this seriously! You will need the practice!
• 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 these problems. The problems in the tutorials will be very much like what you can expect in the written tests.
  

Assignment Sheets / Downloads

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 24. We recommend that you start working on it right away. Note that unlike previous years, assignment 1 will not contribute to your grade.

Practicals tutorial/consultation hours

After each lecture, teaching assistants will be present in various rooms to help you with the mathematics and practicals. Please see the schedule for a list of available rooms for each week.

Important Rules

Because of the large group of students taking this lecture, we need strict rules to keep everything manageable.

• Working in teams: For improved grading efficiency, the programming assignments are supposed to be done in groups of 2 or 3 students. You are allowed to submit alone, but this will reduce your grade by 1 point.
  • 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.
  • 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 are the same as last year. You can therefore use your practical grade of the 2016/2017 course under the following conditions:

1. This must be your second attempt at passing INFOGR (i.e., not third or fourth etc.).

2. You can only keep your full practical grade, i.e. not individual assignments.

3. You must inform the lecturer about keeping the practical grade before May 10.

• Other rules for returning customers:

• You can not reuse your theory grade.

• If you redo the practicals, you can only improve (i.e., (partially) reuse) last year's code if the team composition did not change. If you hand in work that was partially produced by someone else, this will be considered plagiarism, even if you feel you did all the work last year. This will be reported.

• Plagiarism:

• We use an automated plagiarism system that checks for similarities with code handed in this year, as well as several years back, and code from the internet. Plagiarism will always be reported and may have severe consequences.

• Do not store your projects on Github or share code in any other way. If your code is used by another team you may be penalized as well.

• Exceptions to the rules:

• All exceptions require involvement of the study counselor.

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.
  
  

GRADING

Programming assignments: There will be three programming assignments throughout the course. The final grading P for your programming assignments is calculated as follows: P=0.5*P2+0.5*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 is calculated as follows: T = 0.3*T1 + 0.7*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 (T + P) / 2. 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 P2 or P3 if it improves your final grade. The topic for the retake assignment is decided on 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 4th 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
• 2016 Graphics course, held by Jacco Bikker
• 2017 Graphics course, held by Jacco Bikker and Deb Panja.
  

Old posts

May 29:

• Tutorial 4 now available.
• Lecture 8 slides ("Matrices (1)") now available.
  

May 25:

• Midterm exam answers can be downloaded here.
• Grade list for the midterm exam, along with some analysis.

May 18:

• Slides for lecture 2 patched (see Slack).
• Tutorial 2 solutions patched (see Slack).
  

May 17:

• Slides for lecture 7 now online.
• Practice exam answers have been released.

May 16:

• Bug fixes for the solutions for tutorial 1 and 2.

May 15:

• Practice exam now available for download.
• Slides for lecture 6 can be downloaded.
  

May 14:

• Draft solutions for the first three tutorials replaced by final solution sheets.
• Annotated notes for lecture 2 have been updated.
  

May 12:

• Solutions for the first three tutorials have been posted.

May 8:

• Slides for lecture 5 now available.

May 3:

• Slides for lecture 4 now available.

May 1:

• Slides and notes for lecture 3 can now be downloaded.
• Assignment P2 (ray tracing) is now available. This will be explained in the next lecture.

April 26:

• Tutorial sheet 2 now available.
• Tutorial sheet 3 also available, for those that like to work ahead.
  
• Slides and notes for lecture 2 can now be downloaded.

April 24:

• Lecture 1 slides and notes now available.
• Updated tutorial sheet 1, by Mark Dekker.
  

April 23:

• The official INFOGR2018 Slack channel is now open: infogr2018.slack.com.
• First math problem sheet is now available.
• Assignment P1 (tutorial) and the 2018 template now available.

April 12:

• Some changes to the schedule.
• Assignment 1 no longer contributes to your grade.
  

April 5:

• Initial version of the 2017/2018 website.