Readings 04: Readings for September 22-26

by Mike Gleicher on September 12, 2014

Now that we’ve learned about transforming thing in 3D, we need to learn about how to get those 3D objects onto our 2D screens.

There are actually a bunch of smaller topics: viewing, visibility, clipping, …

these are the readings on “Viewing” or “Projection” (the problem of figuring out where in 2D the 3D points go)

  • Chapter 7: Viewing in Foundations of Computer Graphics
  • Chapter 3 (Viewing) in the OpenGL Programmer’s Guide (reader) (ancient version on the web). Be sure to read my notes about the red book to understand why I am asking you to read this. Unfortunately, the sections aren’t numbered. You read a lot of this chapter for last week. For this part, read the front part of the Chapter (The Camera Analogy) up to “Viewing and Modeling Transformations” (which you should have read last week). Then read the sections called “Viewing Transformations” later in the chapter. Don’t worry about the stuff that is OpenGL specific, although seeing how the concepts were embodied in a convenient programming interface can help you understand them. While it’s not essential, reading this entire part of the chapter (up to, and including “Troubleshooting Transformations” which is right before “Manipulating the Matrix Stacks” that you read last week) will get a lot of practical ideas across.
  • Section 4.6 Projections in Chapter 4 of Real Time Rendering. You might want to go back and look through more of the chapter

For the other stuff:

  • Chapter 8: The Graphics Pipeline in Foundations of Computer Graphics. Skim over section 8.1 (rasterization) – we won’t be doing much of this in class. The stuff on clipping isn’t that interesting. The important stuff is hidden away in 8.2-8.2.3 where the problem of visibility is dealt with quickly. 8.2.4 on is a brief preview of some things we’ll discuss more later in the class.

Be warned: we are really lacking good readings about the visibility material, so the main way that you will get it is through lecture.

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