CSU540 Fall 2005 - Major Topics List - Futrelle

Started 2 September 2005 by R P Futrelle

Version of 4 September 2005.

This is an informal list and is not to be taken as a set of assignments or topics to be covered in the final course. But it can serve as a useful guide.

The list below follows the chapter/page order of the textbook, Shirley's 2nd edition. The important material will be gone over by Professor Futrelle. When a section number such as "15.2" is mentioned it implies reading the subsections that follow, unless specifically omitted. The early chapters tend to be the important ones, with more scattered emphasis on later ones.

• Preface - Read it.
• Chapter 1 - Intro. -- Read, but needn't know the details of 1.6. Section 1.8 is focused on C++, not Java.
• Chapter 2 - Misc. Math. -- Secs. 2.1 through 2.4 should be read carefully. 2.5.1 is more detail than we need - skim it. The remainder of the chapter should be read. Sec. 2.11 is quite important, through to the end of the chapter -- triangles underlie graphics software, graphics hardware, games, etc.
• Chapter 3 - Raster Algorithms -- An important one. Basic. Read it.
• Chapter 4 - Signal Processing -- No need to read this one. RPF will discuss some of the material briefly.
• Chapter 5 - Linear Algebra -- Crucially important chapter. Secs. 5.2.6 and 5.2.7 not as crucial.
• Chapter 6 - Transformation Matrices -- Also crucially important. Read and learn.
• Chapter 7 - Viewing -- Read carefully for understanding, but don't try to memorize details. We will refer to this material at various points.
• Chapter 8 - Hidden Surface Elimination -- Another basic chapter that should be read and studied carefully.
• Chapter 9 - Surface Shading -- Short and important chapter.
• Chapter 10 - Ray Tracing -- Read through to the end of Sec. 10.5 carefully. Then skim. Then read Secs. 10.11 through to the chapter end.
• Chapter 11 - Texture Mapping -- Read for the gist.
• Chapter 12 - A Full Graphics Pipeline -- Important concepts here: Clipping (as related to perspective, in particular), triangle strips and fans.
• Chapter 13 - Data Structures for Graphics -- Important chapter, but you need only skim the sections on Tiling.
• Chapter 14 - Sampling -- Lots of math. Skim.
• Chapter 15 - Curves -- Certain portions of this chapter are quite important: 15.2, 15.6 including only 15.6.1.
• Chapter 16 - Animation -- You should enjoy reading this chapter for an overview of animation, e.g., about "boids".
• Chapter 17 - Using Graphics Hardware -- You'll be interested to know how much of the basics of vector and linear algebra, shading, and rasterization you'll need to know to understand how the high-performance GPUs such as NVIDIA and ATI are programmed. So all your hard work will pay off when you read this chapter.
• Chapter 18 - Building Interactive Graphics Applications -- No real need to read this section. We'll cover it all in our discussions of Java Swing.
• Chapter 19 - Light -- Quite technical. Skim.
• Chapter 20 - Color -- Also rather technical. Skim.
• Chapter 21 - Visual Perception -- Fascinating chapter. You should enjoy reading it.
• Chapter 22 - Tone Reproduction -- High dynamic range pictures are important. But this chapter doesn't quite do it justice, esp. in the various rather dark image examples. Skim.
• Chapter 23 - Global Illumination -- These are the secrets behind the ultra-realistic scenes that have been generated, e.g., Plate XXI. Worth skimming.
• Chapter 24 - Reflection Models -- The math is messy, but you should read for the concepts and ideas, e.g., the BRDF which is illustrated when you search images.google.com for brdf.
• Chapter 25 - Image-Based Rendering -- Skip. When I get this topic sorted out, I'll explain it. Since google returns 42,000 hits on "image-based rendering", should be possible.
• Chapter 26 - Visualization -- Focuses on 2D and 3D scalar fields. Not an exciting chapter. Skim. Interesting strategy used to generate Fig. 26.12.

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