Lecture01 Overview of Computer Graphics

Slide

What can Computer Graphics do?

• Video Games
• Movies
• Animations
• Design
• Visualization
• Virtual Reality
• Digital Illustration
• Simulation
• Graphical User Interfaces
• Typography

Why Study Computer Graphics?

• Fundamental Intellectural Challenges
  • Creates and interacts with realistic virtual world
  • Requires understanding of all aspects of physical world
  • New computing methods, displays, technologies
• Technical Challenges
  • Math of (perspective) projects, curves, surfaces
  • Physics of lighting and shading
  • Representing / Operating shapes in 3D
  • Animation / Simulation

Forget about the previous reasons: Computer Graphics is AWESOME!

Course Topics (mainly 4 parts)

Rasterization

• Project geometry primitives (3D triangles / polygons) onto the screen
• Break projected primitives into fragments (pixels)
• Gold standard in Video Games (Real-time Applications)

Curves and Meshes

• How to represent geometry in Computer Graphics

Ray Tracing

• Shoot rays from the camera though each pixel
  • Calculate intersection and shading
  • Continue to bounce the rays till they hit light sources
• Gold standard in Animations / Movies (Offline Applications)

Animation / Simulation

• Key frame Animation
• Mass-spring System

GAMES101 is NOT about

• Using OpenGL / DirectX / Vulkan
• The syntax of Shaders
• We learn Graphics, not Graphics APIs!
• 3D modeling using Maya / 3DS MAX / Blender, or VR / game development using Unity / Unreal Engine
• Computer Vision / Deep Learning topics, e.g. XYZ-GAN
• After this course, you’ll be able to learn these by yourself