Basic Information

Units:

4. May be taken for 3 units by graduate students.

Quarter:

Winter 95

Time and Place:

TTh 9:30 - 10:45, McCullough 134

Televised?

Yes, but not offered to remote (i.e. out of Bay Area) students.

Read the newsgroup su.class.cs348b for class announcements.

Send all course-related questions and problems to cs348b@cs.

The directory /usr/class/cs348b contains support code (source, libraries and include files) for the programming assignmnets .

There is a separate web page with images from this year's rendering competition.

Syllabus

• Jan 10 What is Rendering?
• Jan 17 Classic Algorithms: Zbuffering, Scanline, Reyes
• Jan 19 Ray Tracing I: Basic formulation, Intersection
• Jan 24 Ray Tracing II: Acceleration, Visibility
• Jan 26 Ray Tracing III: Sampling and Antialiasing
• Jan 31 Radiometry and Photometry I
• Feb 2 Radiometry and Photometry II
• Feb 7 Spectral Representations
• Feb 9 Camera simulation
• Feb 14 Reflection Models I: Diffuse
• Feb 16 Reflection Models II: Glossy
• Feb 21 Texture Mapping I: Basics
• Feb 23 Texture Mapping II: Polygons
• Feb 28 The Rendering Equation
• Mar 2 Monte Carlo Methods I: Probability
• Mar 7 Monte Carlo Methods II: Variance reduction
• Mar 9 Radiosity I: Form Factors, Solvers
• Mar 14 Radiosity II: Finite Element Methods, Meshing, Hierarchical
• Mar 16 Hybrid Methods or Volume Rendering

Clicking on a hypertext link will download a PostScript file of the slides used in that lecture. These PostScript files will print on newer printers (e.g. HP LaserJet4 or Apple Laserwriter 600), but many people have reported problems on older printers.

Note: A master copy of all overheads used in lectures is in the filing cabinet outside of Lilian Better's office in CIS (see below).

Handouts

• Course Information
• Assignment 1
• Assignment 2
• Assignment 3
• Assignment 4
• Final Project

Teaching Staff

Instructor: Pat Hanrahan
Office: CIS 127
Hours: Tue/Thu 11-12
Email: hanrahan@cs.stanford.edu

TA: Eric Veach
Office: Cedar Hall, Office B10
Office hours: Tue 8-9 pm (Sweet Hall SGI Lab), Mon 11-12 (Cedar Hall)
Phone: 723-0033
Email: ericv@cs

Secretary: Lilian Betters
Office: CIS 036
Email: lilian@mojave
Phone: (415) 725-3651
Hours: M-F 8:30 am - 4:30 pm

Graphics Laboratories

Programming projects must be done on SGI workstations. These workstations have high resolution 24-bit color displays, and special purpose hardware for real-time 3D graphics. There are two graphics labratories available for course assignments.

Sweet Hall 026 has a cluster of 15 Indigos (100Mhz R4000 processor, 60K polygons/sec). The SGI laboratory has a combination lock; contact us for the combination.

Margaret Jacks Hall Level 0 has a cluster of 10 Personal Irises (35Mhz R3000 processor, 27K polygons/sec). The labratory door is always locked; to open it, you need the same key that opens the outside doors. If you do not have such a key, see the Computer Science Department receptionist.

Prerequisites

Attendees should have a working knowledge of computer graphics (at the level of CS248 and CS348A). In particular, you should fully understand the basic 3D display pipeline, viewing and modeling transformations, simple geometric modeling using polygins and quadrics, and hidden surface algorithms like the z-buffer algorithm.

Solid knowledge of integral calculus and basic geometric algorithms is an absolute must. Some exposure to signal processing and probability is also assumed.

Texts and Readings

An Introduction to Ray Tracing Edited by Andrew Glassner, Academic Press, 1989.

Radiosity and Realistic Image Synthesis Michael Cohen and John Wallace, Academic Press, 1993.

Additional readings will be assigned from research monographs, papers from current journals and conference proceedings, and excerpts from conference tutorials. These books and related materials are on reserve in the Math and Computer Science Library.

Last update: January 23, 1995