CS 431/636 - Advanced Rendering Techniques
Spring 2012
Description: The creation of realistic images from 3D models is central
to the development of computer graphics. The ray tracing algorithm has
become one of the most popular and powerful techniques for creating
photo-realistic images. Ray tracing's simplicity, elegance and ease of
implementation make it one of the most important image generation algorithms
in computer graphics. This class will explore in detail the algorithmic
components of ray tracing.
These include
- Object representations
- Object-ray intersections
- Viewing/camera models
- Shading models
- Reflection & refraction models
- Acceleration techniques
- 2D/3D texture mapping
- Anti-aliasing & filtering
- Participating media
Students will implement many of these components in their class programming projects.
Other types of rendering algorithms will be discussed, e.g. radiosity,
volume rendering, non-photorealistic rendering and photon mapping.
Location - Korman 105D
Time - Wednesday, 6:00 PM → 8:50 PM
Instructor
Dr. David Breen
University Crossing 143
david AT cs.drexel.edu
215-895-1626
Office Hours - Thursdays, 4PM → 5:30 PM
Other times by appointment
Textbooks
Recommended
-
Ray Tracing from the Ground Up, Kevin Suffern, AK Peters, 2007,
ISBN: 978-1-56881-272-4
Supplemental
-
Realistic Ray Tracing, 2nd Edition, Peter Shirley and R. Keith Morley,
AK Peters, 2003, ISBN: 978-1568811987
-
An Introduction to Ray Tracing, Andrew S. Glassner (ed.),
Morgan Kaufmann, 1989, ISBN: 978-0122861604
Grade
Graduate Section
- Programming Assignments - 75%
- In-class Presentation - 10%
- Final Exam - 15%
Undergraduate Section
- Programming Assignments - 85%
- Final Exam - 15%
I intend to use the standard grading scale of 100→ 90 (A), 89→ 80 (B),
79→ 70 (C), 69→ 60 (D), else (F).
Please also note that
incompletes will not be given for this course.
Each graduate student will present a research paper in class on a
topic not covered by the regular class lectures.
Choose a paper from this list.
It is a much shorter version of this list.
You may present another paper related to rendering, with the instructor's
permission.
Online students will simply submit their Powerpoint file by the end of
the term.
The Powerpoint presentation should summarize the paper and contain
at least 10 slides.
Assignments are due at 11:59PM on the due date
Post images on the web and code on Bb Vista
E-mail me the URL
Late Policy
- One point off per day late, up to a maximum of 5 points.
- All regular assignments due last day of classes at 11:59 PM.
- No Incompletes!
Assignments
Each assignment is worth 10 points.
Programming assignments may be written in any language.
Follow all of the instructions listed in the assignments.
5 points will be subtracted from an assignment if all of the
instructions aren't followed.
It is expected that you will do you own work, i.e. write your own
software for the assignments.
You cannot "borrow" code from other
students or download programs from the Internet.
Specifically, you cannot use the code provided by the Suffern
book (or its derivatives) for your assignments.
Any student violating this policy will be
given an 'F' for the class.
You may use image and basic math libraries,
e.g. for storing and manipulating vectors and matrices.
Final Exam
There will be a final exam on material not covered by the
regular assignments. This includes material presented by graduate
students
Topics covered on the final exam are
- Radiosity
- Photon Mapping
- BRDFs
- Volume Rendering
Questions related to these topics will be in a short-answer format.
There will be 2 multiple choice questions covering each paper
presented by a student during class. The questions will be based
on material from the students' presentation slides.
Student Presentation Schedule
- Week 3
- Week 5
- Matt Patchin - M. Pharr,
C. Kolb, R. Gershbein and P. Hanrahan, "Rendering Complex Scenes
with Memory-Coherent Ray Tracing," Proc. SIGGRAPH '97, August 1997,
pp. 101-108
- Kevin Cheung - C. Kolb,
D. Mitchell and P. Hanrahan, "A realistic camera model for computer
graphics," Proc. SIGGRAPH '95, August 1995,
pp. 317-324
- Steve Lombardi - Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions
- Week 6
- Week 9
- Week 10
Link to Recorded Lectures
Alternative recordings if you have trouble with Silverlight
Class Schedule
Week 1 - 4/4/12
Week 2 - 4/11/12
Week 3 - 4/18/12
Week 4 - 4/25/12
Week 5 - 5/2/12
Grad student presentations
- Related papers
- D. Greenberg, M. Cohen and K. Torrance, "Radiosity: A method for
computing global illumination," The Visual Computer, 2(5):291--7,
September 1986.
- M. Cohen and D. Greenberg, "The hemi-cube: a radiosity solution for complex environments,"
ACM Computer Graphics
(SIGGRAPH '85 Proceedings), Vol. 19, No. 3, July 1985, pp. 34-40
- M. Cohen, S.E. Chen, J.R. Wallace and D. Greenberg, "A progressive refinement approach to fast radiosity image generation,"
ACM Computer Graphics
(SIGGRAPH '88 Proceedings), Vol. 22, No. 4, August 1985, pp. 75-84
- H. Wann Jensen ,
"Global Illumination using Photon Maps ," Proc.
7th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, 1996, pp. 21-30
- Lecture Topics -
Week 6 - 5/9/12
Week 7 - 5/16/12
Week 8 - 5/23/12
Week 9 - 5/30/12
Week 10 - 6/6/12
- Read Suffern: Chapters 10, 11, 12 & 26
- Read Glassner: Chapter 3
- Related paper
- R.A. Drebin, L. Carpenter, and
P. Hanrahan, "Volume Rendering," ACM Computer Graphics
(SIGGRAPH '88 Proceedings), 1988, pp. 65-74
- G. Kindlmann and J. Durkin,
"Semi-automatic generation of transfer functions for direct volume rendering,"
Proc. 1998 IEEE Symposium on Volume Visualization,
1998, pp. 79-86
- L. Westover,
"Footprint evaluation for volume rendering,"
Proc. SIGGRAPH, 1990, pp. 367-376
- K. Mueller et al.,
"Splatting errors and antialiasing,"
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 178-191, 1997
- P. Lacroute and M. Levoy,
"Fast Volume Rendering Using a Shear-Warp Factorization of the Viewing Transformation,"
Proc. SIGGRAPH, 1994, pp. 451-458
- Non-Photorealistic Rendering Publications
- Lecture Topics - Volume Rendering
& Non-photorealistic Rendering
- Assignment 6 due 6/11/12
- Extra credit assignment due 6/11/12
Last modified on June 13, 2012.