ECS 175: Computer Graphics

Subject
ECS 175
Title
Computer Graphics
Status
Active
Units
4.0
Effective Term
2019 Winter Quarter
Learning Activities
Lecture: 3 hours
Discussion: 1 hour
Description
Principles of computer graphics, with a focus on interactive systems. Current graphics hardware, elementary operations in two-and three-dimensional space, geometric transformations, camera models and interaction, graphics system design, standard graphics APIs, individual projects. GE Prior to Fall 2011: SciEng. GE: SE, VL.
Prerequisites
(ECS 060 or ECS 034 or ECS 036C); (MAT 022A or MAT 067)
Enrollment Restrictions
Pass One open to Computer Science and Computer Science Engineering Majors only.

Summary of Course Content

  1. Computer Graphics Hardware
    1. The interactive graphics pipeline
    2. Basic architecture of modern Graphics Processing Units
    3. The CPU-GPU interface
  2. Curve and Surface Drawing
    1. Line drawing
    2. Bezier curves and B-spline curves
    3. Rasterization of triangles
  3. Transformations
    1. Transformation matrices and their combinations
    2. Modeling and viewing transformations
  4. Modeling
    1. Object representations
    2. Hierarchical scene structure and generation of complex objects
    3. Object file formats
    4. Texture mapping
  5. Lighting
    1. Specular and diffuse lighting models
    2. Interactive lighting models, including their drawbacks
    3. Flat and Gouraud shading of triangulated models
  6. Rendering
    1. Camera models and interaction
    2. Z-buffering and other visible-surface algorithms Other topics such as Bezier curves, ray tracing, clipping and culling may be discussed.

Illustrative Reading

  • P. Shirley, M. Ashikhmin, and S. Marschner, Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, 3rd edition, AK Peters, 2009.
  • E. Angel and D. Schreiner, Interactive Computer Graphic: A Top Down Approach With Shader-Based Open GL, 6th edition, Addison- Wesley, 2011.
  • S. Gortler, Foundations of 3D Computer Graphics, MIT Press, 2012.
  • D. Hearn, M. Baker, and W. Carithers, Computer Graphics with Open GL, 4th edition, Prentice-Hall, 2010

Potential Course Overlap
There is no significant overlap with other courses.

Course Category

Upper Division