CS 970 Advanced Graphics: Spring 2006

This course goes farther, and covers techniques for making realistic, complex and beautiful images. Among the topics presented are:

• Ray Tracing Ray-object intersections, CSG, acceleration techniques

• Sampling Signal processing and statistical analysis of discretization in image synthesis

• Radiometry Mathematical formulations of how light is generated and transported

• Optics The physics of light reflection and refraction, and their application to lenses

• Cameras Realistic camera models, including depth of field, motion blur and exposure

• Reflection Reflection functions (BRDF's), anisotropy and microscopic surface models

• GPUs Modern graphics cards incorporate general-purpose vector processors. There are exciting possibilities here.

• Global Illumination Rendering equation, radiosity equation, form factors, radiosity solvers

• Textures Adding surface detail, bump maps, displacement maps

• Volume Rendering Methods for making images out of volumetrically-defined scenes (as opposed to surface-based descriptions of scenes, which are more common)

• Non-Photorealism Borrowing methods used by artists and illustrators, which take advantage of the human visual system and often express scene features more clearly than photorealistic approaches