Computer Graphics 2: 15-463, Spring 1996

Administrative Info

Place and Time: Tue/Thu 9:00-10:20 in Doherty Hall A317. To get there, go to Wean 5th floor and walk east.

Professor: Paul Heckbert

Office: Doherty Hall 4301A
Email: ph@cs.cmu.edu
Office Hours: Thu 10:30-11:30, or by appointment (send email)

Teaching Assistant: Michael Garland

Office: Doherty Hall 4301H
Email: garland@cs.cmu.edu
Office Hours: Wed 2:00-3:00

Teaching Assistant: Prem Janardhan

Office: Wean Hall 2303
Email: prem@cs.cmu.edu
Office Hours: Tue 10:30-11:30

Non-electronic handouts missed in class may be picked up from my secretary: Phyllis Pomerantz

Office: Doherty Hall 4301G, x8-7897
Email: plp@cs.cmu.edu

What's where

The class Web page is the primary online source for documents and info. The URL is file://localhost/afs/andrew/scs/cs/15-463/www/463.html or http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/andrew/scs/cs/15-463/www/463.html .
The class newsgroup is cmu.cs.class.cs463. This bboard will serve as a Q&A forum. Feel free to ask questions or exchange information. We'll read the group and answer. We'll also post important official announcements there, as well as in the WWW page.
Each registered student will get a subdirectory in /afs/andrew/scs/cs/15-463/students named after her/his last name, to be used for electronic submission of assignments, and to meet your class-related storage needs. To get a directory you need to sign in electronically via the Web.

Prerequisites

15-462 or equivalent, linear algebra, and a little calculus. Some of the topics you're expected to know from 462 are computer graphics modeling, including knowledge of 4x4 affine and perspective transformations, parametric surfaces, and polygon scan conversion.

Required Text

Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, 2nd edition in C. Foley, van Dam, Feiner, and Hughes. Addison-Wesley, 1996. (The 2nd edition not in C is also OK).

Optional Texts

Digital Image Processing, Gonzalez and Woods. Addison-Wesley, 1992. This book is good for the first 1/3 of the course.
Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques, Watt and Watt. Addison-Wesley, 1992.
An Introduction To Ray Tracing, Andrew Glassner (ed.). Academic Press, 1989.

Grading

65% homework (probably 4 programming and 2 written). Late policy: 14% off per school day. The programming assignments will be:
- Assignment P1: morphing animation
- Assignment P2: ray casting (non-recursive ray tracing)
- Assignment P3: recursive ray tracing
- Assignment P4: radiosity
35% midterm & final

Assignments must be done by you alone unless you have permission from the instructor to work in a group.

Computers

You can use any language or machine you like. Accounts are available on the Silicon Graphics workstations in Doherty Hall 2300, which have 24 bits per pixel. Contact Michael Garland for an account, and Phyllis Pomerantz for a key to the room. The machines in this room are Indy's and Personal Irises. Machines with 24 bits per pixel are recommended, since several of the assignments require high quality filtering, which is very difficult to judge on a dithered 8 bit display.

ph@cs.cmu.edu 1/15/96