by Mike Gleicher on September 30, 2014
There are a number of visiting speakers coming soon talking about topics that might be of interest to you if you’re interested in graphics.
All of these talks are on Thursday afternoons. They don’t have anything to do with class. But if you’re interested in graphicsy things, this is a great way to hear more.
On October 2, Hany Farid (Prof. at Dartmouth) will give the Eye Research Institute Distinguished Lecture (5:45 at the Health Sciences Learning Center, over by the Hospital). Prof. Farid is an expert on determining if pictures have been faked. Information is here. Cancelled!
On October 9th, Henrik Christensen (Prof. at Georgia Tech) will give a CS Department Distinguished Lecture (4pm in CS1240). Prof. Christiansen is a world renowned roboticist, and will probably tell us all kinds of interesting things about robots.
On October 16th, Gregory Abowd (Prof. at Georgia Tech) will give a CS Department Distinguished Lecture (4pm in CS1240) about Human Computer Interaction.
On October 23, Mary Czerwinski (Researcher at Microsoft) will give a CS Department Distinguished Lecture (4pm in CS1240) about Human Computer Interaction.
by Mike Gleicher on September 30, 2014
My colleague Eric Haines (one of the authors of the Realtime Rendering book) teaches a version of a graphics class. He built this cool web-based demo that shows how the different transforms work to get from the world space points to the screen (via the projection matrix and the camera matrix, which he calls the view matrix).
http://www.realtimerendering.com/udacity/transforms.html
This might help you get a sense of what is going on with all of the transforms you need for Assignment 4. Or it might just be fun to play with.
by Mike Gleicher on September 26, 2014
This past week, we got triangles from 3D back into 2D so we could get them on the screen.
Next week, we’ll talk about having primitives that are not just lines and triangles: we’ll discuss curves and curved surfaces.
We’ll also talk about rotations in 3D since we keep putting that discussion off.
For the assignment due on Wednesday, you’ll get to try out those viewing transformations and make some 3D pictures in SVG. Assignment 4 is due Wednesday, October 1.
For readings, the readings aren’t required for this week. On the reading page for this week there’s some extra readings on transformations, if you want to learn more. There are also some readings about curves, but you can read them after we discuss things in class. (that is, the readings will be assigned next week)
by Mike Gleicher on September 25, 2014
Assignment 4 has been posted to in the Assignments category.
Please read it over and ask for clarifications if necessary. (its good to ask questions on Piazza, since other people might be thinking the same questions).
by asperling on September 23, 2014
by Mike Gleicher on September 23, 2014
Some material from an upcoming, unfinished book (explained here) have become available to me. It’s material on transformations is quite good. Had I had it a few weeks ago, it would have been the required reading.
So, for now, Chapters 5,6 and 7 of John Hart’s “Big Fun Graphics Book” are recommended for learning more about transformations. Most of it is just another way to see the same material from the other readings. However, his derivations of how to build rotations (and his discussions of rotations in 3D more generally) are better than any of the readings we’ve had. I may require some of them in the future.
For now, I recommend this reading if you aren’t getting it about transformations, or want to see some of the stuff in class (like building rotations or matrix stacks) in print, or want to see more examples and a few extra details.
by Mike Gleicher on September 19, 2014
Last week, we finally got to the third dimension! Sorry, but this will be as far as we go (unless you count the 4-dimensional homogeneous space that we embed 3D into as 4D, or time as the fourth dimension).
We didn’t quite finish our discussion of 3D transformations – particularly rotations. However, I want to move on a bit to talk about the problem of actually drawing those 3D objects we were transforming onto our 2D screens. This will involve a special kind of transformation (that projects 3D onto 2D), as well as learning a bit about how to make sure things in front block out things in back (we call this visibility in graphics). We’ll need rotations for the viewing transformations, so we’ll talk about them some more.
For this week, the readings will mainly be about viewing, and a little bit about visibility.
The assignment due on Wednesday the 24th involves applying transforms and actually doing a little programming (not just creating SVGs – although your program will create an SVG).
Next Week (its October already, wow, how time flies) we’ll start to take about shapes in 2D and 3D – which is mainly a way to start talking about curves and surfaces.
by Mike Gleicher on September 18, 2014
Assignment 3 (due next Wednesday, September 24th) has been posted. It was sortof posted before, but now the pictures and links should show up.
Please read over the assignment soon and ask questions if anything isn’t clear. It’s probably best to ask questions on Piazza – since if you have a question, a dozen other people probably have the same one.
Also: if you catch any errors in the assignment or tutorials, please let us know.
by Mike Gleicher on September 12, 2014
This week, we’ll (hopefully) conclude our linear algebra review and move on to thinking about transformations in the third dimension. We’ll actually start by doing 3D transformations for 2D spaces (homogenous coordinates), and then do 4D transformations for 3D.
For Wednesday, September 17th, Assignment 2 is due. You might want to read the SVG tutorials to get a starting point on how to apply the transformation concepts from class to making pictures in SVG.
The third week’s reading gives a few short things about linear algebra, and then has some things describing transformations in 3D. There isn’t really that much reading because some of it you’ve already read (FCG chapter 6), and for others, you can focus on the relevant parts within the chapters. Of course, reading more than the minimum will give you a deeper sense of the topic, and an idea of what is coming up in class.
Next week (Sept 22-26) we’ll think about how those primitives in 3D make their way to our (2D) screens.
by Mike Gleicher on September 11, 2014
Given that there weren’t that many questions about assignment 1, I think we can move on to actually trying to use SVG to review class concepts. (OK, some of the hierarchy concepts we won’t get to in class until 9/16).
So, assignment 2 is due on Wednesday, September 17th.
The SVG Tutorials (look under Tutorials) should be really useful in figuring out how to do this assignment.