Assignments

Your assignment grades, along with class statistics, become available on-line as soon as grading is completed. Please verify the accuracy of our records regularly, and notify the instructor (not the TA) if you find any transcription errors.

Problem sets

Mechanics

Problem sets are assigned on a weekly basis. They are handed out on Tuesdays, and are due a week later, in class and by the end of lecture. The problem sets are available on-line; also, the course schedule lists all due dates.

Each problem set is divided into two parts:

Exercises: these are recommended practice problems. Solutions to these problems will not be handed out; instead, the TA will interactively solve these problems with the assistance of the class during the problem sessions.
Problems: these are problems which you must solve, and turn in your solutions for grading. The TA will provide hints and clarifications on these problems during the problem sessions. Solutions will be handed out a week after the due date.
You should be as clear and precise as possible in your presentations: unclear, sloppy, or unintelligible explanations - even if they are correct - are likely to lose points.

The problem sets do not require any programming: they only comprise paper-and-pencil problems. Typed work is preferred, but neatly hand-written work is fine, too. Illegible, sloppy work will not be graded. Each problem set you turn in should list on its first page the following information:

Your name.
Your SUNet ID (Sweet Hall login).
The problem set number.
The date on which you are turning in your work.

Problem sets contribute 60% to your course grade (10% each).

Collaboration

You may discuss the problems in each problem set with up to three fellow students, and the course staff. To avoid misunderstandings: "discuss" means brainstorming about the solutions at a high level (e.g. "I used the master theorem"); it does not include

discussion of specific details (e.g. "I used case (b) of the master theorem, where a=..., b=..., which implied that..."), or
looking at each other's write-ups. On the contrary, each student should write up his/her own solutions individually.

If you choose to collaborate with a study group, you must list on your solutions the names of your collaborators.

You may also consult literary sources, or the WWW, to whatever extent you wish; a list of suggested references is available. In this case, please provide a full citation of sources you found helpful.

Any student who plagiarizes or otherwise violates the Stanford Honor Code will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Stanford judicial system. So, please consult us if you have questions about our collaboration policy.

Examinations

Midterm

The midterm examination will take place on Thursday, July 24, 1997, in the classroom. SPCD students are required to come to campus and take the exam in class.

The midterm is designed as a one hour test, but you will be given the full lecture period (1 hour and 50 minutes) to complete it. It will cover material presented in class or problem sessions, or assigned as textbook reading, before or on Thursday, July 17, 1997; the course schedule lists the relevant syllabus.

During the exam, you may use only the following materials: the textbook, all course handouts, your personal lecture notes, and your own graded assignments. You may not use any other books, or any other material not written by yourself.

If you cannot take the midterm on the scheduled date due to extraordinary circumstances, special arrangements may be made by contacting the instructor (not the TA) at least two weeks in advance.

Your midterm grade will contribute 15% to your course grade.

Final

There will be no final examination.

Project

Overview

The course project is an in-depth exercise in algorithm analysis and programming, with heavier emphasis on the latter. You will be using Sun workstations and C or C++ (your choice) to develop the core of a volume renderer: you will be given all code handling user interaction and geometric calculations; your task will focus on octree management. The result will be a visually appealing resume item.

The project is designed to consume one person-week of analysis and coding. All project materials (description, supporting software, etc.) will be available at the start of the quarter; also, the necessary concepts for completing the project will have been presented in class within the first few weeks of the quarter. Thus, you are expected to start working on your project early on.

Your project is due by 5:00p on Friday, August 15, 1997; we will grant no extensions, so please start early.

Your project grade will contribute 25% to your course grade. It will depend on the correctness, performance, and overall quality of your code and accompanying documentation.

Platforms

Sweet Hall houses on its second floor 50 Sun SPARC workstations (named elaine1 through elaine50) and 28 Sun Ultra workstations (named epic1 through epic18 and adelbert1 through adelbert10); also, three Sun compute servers (named cardinal0 through cardinal2) are accessible remotely (the workstations are all accessible remotely, too); to find out the specs of these machines, execute help systems on any Sweet Hall machine.

Alternatively you may choose to complete your project elsewhere. In this case, you are on your own regarding course software support, including debugging, porting, etc.

We will grade your project - including some simple performance measurements - on an epic workstation. Therefore, it's absolutely critical that your submitted code compiles and runs on an epic.

Collaboration

You may work in teams of no more than two students, and turn in a single project per group: all group members will receive the same grade.

The same restrictions apply to collaboration across project groups as between students' problem sets. For example, no code/documentation sharing/copying is allowed, and violations of the Honor Code will be severely punished.