Assignment Group 3 (Week 4 Feb 10-14)

in Assignments (list page)

The third week of assignments focus on Curves - a tricky topic that I find fascinating. In the regular class, we divide it between a (rather long) workbook, and a programming assignment (the train). For this class, we’ll move the train to the portfolio (next week), so you can take more time to dig into curves (and get a head start on the portfolio).

Book and Readings and Videos

The workbook is the primary resource to learn the material. It (along with the lectures) provide a solid introduction that will help you get the details from the book chapter. (Since I wrote the book chapter, I can be critical: it’s a little too mathematical/abstract, it’s helpful to get the intuitions first and then read the chapter). The book chapter (Chapter 15) is in Canvas.

There are two workbooks (Workbook 5 and Workbook Train). (links on Canvas

There were 3 lectures in 2023 about Curves:

In 2022, there were some extra things: a review session on Bezier curves, and the 3rd lecture covered different topics (you can watch the extra video, or the 2022 versions of the main lectures - which are really similar to 2023):

The two YouTube videos The Continuity of Splines and The Beauty of Bezier Curves mentioned in the workbook are excellent. Watching these is required. She explains things differently (and in a different order) than I like to teach it, but the quality of the animations is amazing. If nothing else, it is great to watch them to realize what can happen when a talented person takes a lot of time to produce high-quality materials.

I don’t have materials (beyond the textbook) for B-Splines. I’ll tell you enough in class to decypher the book chapter in order to do the Train assignment. And maybe we’ll do more with B-Splines later in the semester (it’s really cool math).

Assignment

Go through the materials, and put your summary and questions into Content Survey 3: Curves (due Mon, Feb 10) to be ready for class discussion.

The relevant assignments (on Canvas):

For the workbooks: it is important to read them and understand them. Doing the little assignments in Workbook 5 will help you check that you understand what is going on. For the train, spend time to play with the example to make sure you appreciate the concepts (like continuity and arc-length parameterization).

You will implement the train (or something train-like) for the portfolio. So you might want to think about the train assignment. But we don’t expect you to implement much of it. Instead, use that “programming time” to start to look ahead at the portfolio (since it is coming up soon!).