Archived Web Page

This is the course web for the Spring 2020 edition of CS 559 Computer Graphics. The course is over. If you are looking for a later vertion of the course, you will need to look elsewhere (Fall 2020 isn’t available yet).

Plan for Alternative Instruction

If you haven’t seen the CS559 Plan for Altenative Instruction due to the COVID-19 Response, please read (Updated 3/19) Plan for Class as Part of the COVID-19 Response.

Welcome to the CS 559 (Spring 2020) Web Page!

Once the class gets rolling, we will use Canvas and Piazza more than this web page. But, for now, it has a lot of useful information for getting started in the class. You probably want to start with Getting Started.

End of Semester

Amazingly we’ve made it to the end of the semester. Go Make Some Cool Stuff! I always end the last lecture saying something like that (maybe even those exact same words). We’ve spent a semester learning about how to make things. Hopefully, you’ll be able to make use of what you’ve learned. Over the semester, you’ve gotten enough foundations that you can make things. And its the starting point for doing more. Read more…

Grade Errors (and non-Errors)

Update: It seems all grade errors have been resolved. Grading Non-Errors Some people are asking about rounding. There are two parts to this: There are many ways to do rounding. The grade computations script does it in a particular way. If you compute your grade yourself, you might round differently. The most important thing is to be consistent. If I were to switch rounding schemes, I would need to do it in a fair and consistent way. Read more…

Exam Grades

The scores for the final exam will be posted soon. We are not able to get the exams back to you. There are some challenges with how Canvas works. A lot of the grading had to be done manually. Everything has been triple checked. However, we cannot give you the details of your answers. The number posted to Canvas is “adjusted”. The exam was challenging, so everyone was given some points to make the distributions work out. Read more…

Exam Technical Issues (update 5-06)

Updates on Wednesday morning (this will be posted on the course web and Canvas) Some last minute updates: All students who didn’t take the exam Tuesday will be in Section “A” (code A). Look for quizzes titled “Final Exam: Quiz 1-A (1st Quiz for students with code A)” (2 or for the second one). You will not need an access code. Instructors in other courses have reported issues with using Safari. Read more…

Instructions for the Final Exam

The exam is scheduled for 2:45pm - 4:45pm, Wednesday May 6th. Students may take the exam within this time slot. We will allow students to take the exam in a window from 1pm-6pm. These times are for Madison (CDT, UTC-5). The exam will be administered using Canvas quizzing. You will need a reliable internet connection for the time period of the exam. If you need some form of accomodation (see below), please send email to the Professor by Friday, May 1st. Read more…

Final Exam Plan

Short Version: The exam will be semi-synchronous (you can take it within a window), administered by Canvas Quizzing, focused on the last half of class (non-cumulative). If you need some accommodation (McBurney, you live more than 6 times zones away from Madison, you don’t have a good internet connection, …) contact the Professor by email. The Rules (So Far): More details will come soon. Some details are still being worked out. Read more…

Class Endgame: The last 2 weeks

Short version: Expect exam details soon. Short version: it will be a semi-synchronous online exam given using Canvas quizzing. Expect WB12 to be announced soon. It will be due the last day of classes (Friday, May 1), although there will be a “check-in” deadline on Sunday, April 26th. The last 2 quizzes will be “graded surveys” - you get 100% just for participating. We will “cancel lectures” so that students have more time to work on the last workbook. Read more…

Some hints on getting ShaderFrog shaders into the framework

ShaderFrog is an online editor for creating shaders. It is one of many that exist. It has some particularly nice features in that it allows you to create new shaders by putting existing ones together. It also has a gallery of shaders that other people made. This page gives you some hints on converting ShaderFrog shaders to work in the class software environment and THREE. We intend this to be an example of how to think about doing the conversion, rather than a specific endorsement of ShaderFrog. Read more…

Week 12 Lectures (23 and 24)

The Lectures for Week 12 are available on Kaltura. (note: the first parts are available immediately, the later parts will be available soon) Part 0 - Orientation and Overview - (6 Minutes) (slides) Part 1 - Pipeline and Programmability - (26 Minutes) (slides) Part 2 - Shading Languages and GLSL - (27 Minutes) (slides) Part 3 - Mechanics of Linking Languages - (27 Minutes) (slides) Part 4A - Tips and Techniques: Lighting - (29 Minutes) (slides) Part 4B - Tips and Techniques: Image-Based Textures - (10 Minutes) (slides) Part 4C - Tips and Techniques: Idioms and Aliasing - (20 minutes) (slides) Part 4d - Tips and Techniques: Noise - (15 Minutes) (slides) You can get the slides for all parts. Read more…

Week 11 Lectures (21 and 22)

The Lectures for Week 11 are available on Kaltura. Rather than 2 75 minute lectures, I broke things into 5 parts, one of which was long enough that I further broke it into 2 parts (so there’s 5A and 5B). They are still probably too long for video lectures - you probably want to pause every 10 minutes or so. Part 1 - Review and Overview - (24 minutes) (slides) Part 2 - Rasterization - (19 minutes) (slides) Part 3 - Aliasing and Anti-Aliasing - (19 minutes) (slides) Part 4 - Visibility - (29 minutes) (slides) Part 5a - The Graphics Pipeline: Overview and History - (21 mins) (slides) Part 5b - The Graphics Pipeline: A Triangle’s Journey - (29 mins) (slides) You can get the slides for all 6 parts in one big PDF file. Read more…