Computer Graphics

Qualifying Examination Reading List

This is the Summer 2005 Graphics Qual reading list. It has been updated. This older version is provided as a reference and pointer to resources only!

Students interested in taking the Graphics Qualifying exam should have taken a solid introductory class (such as CS559), and at least one graduate level class that deals with a broad set of issues (such as Computer Animation or Rendering).

The aim of this list is to elucidate a set of topics that any graphics researcher should understand. Most of the list consists of specific papers, typically chosen because they introduce or describe an insight that is of particular importance. Other papers are of such significance that anyone working in the field should know of them. When reading the papers, it is most important to identify the key insight in the paper. In many cases, it is also vital to understand what the paper offered over prior art, and how it relates to other approaches to the same problem.

This document is broken into two sections. The Topic Areas section lists the areas and papers students should have particular knowledge of. It is followed by a bibliography.

Topic Areas

Core Topics

Students are expected to have a broad knowledge of computer graphics at the level of an undergraduate course. Therefore, the syllabus for such a class is required knowledge for this exam. A complete undergraduate course topics list is available for CS559 (in two parts here and here). These topics can be reviewed using a combination of textbooks and material available on the graphics class web pages. Some specific suggestions are at the bottom of this page.

Underlying Knowledge

Some areas outside of computer graphics are essential to the field, and a student should have a working knowledge of these at the undergraduate level. In addition to core issues in computer science, students should understand basic linear algebra and numerical methods. For any of these topics, any basic text will do.

Signal Processing

Basic signal processing issues and techniques, such as the sampling of reconstruction of functions, are vital to computer graphics. Many of the papers in the reading list assume an understanding of signal processing.

Rotations and Quaternions

The representation of rotations comes up in many areas of 3D graphics. Students should understand the important techniques.

Miscellaneous

Image Processing and Manipulation

Students should have a knowledge of the following beyond what is typically presented in an undergraduate level course.

Image Processing

Unfortunately, most undergraduate texts (and courses) only touch on this key foundation of computer science. The references listed here are suggestions to gain a sufficient knowledge. Image Processing is a huge field. For graphics, students must understand the main intuitions and mathematical bases, such as sampling and reconstruction, filtering, and frequency domain methods.

Image Compositing

Image Warping

This is an important enough topic to warrant its own heading. The Wolberg survey article is highly recommended (and possibly sufficient for control issues). Students should understand the Bier-Neeley method, and why it is important. Low level image sampling issues are essential to understand.

Multi-resolution image methods

Students need to be familiar with multi-resolution image methods, such as Laplacian Pyramids, MIPMAPS and Wavelet image decompositions. These topics are adequately covered in a variety of readings, here we list some of the original sources.

Modeling

Most texts provide adequate coverage of the main techniques, such as parametric curves and patches, implicit surfaces, and polygonal meshes. The newer ones even introduce more current topics such as subdivision surfaces.

Representations

Geometric Simplification

Rendering

Photo-realistic Rendering

The primary reference for this area is Sillion and Puech.

Real-time Rendering

Image-Based Rendering

Stylized Rendering

Visibility

Animation

Basic Animation Principles and Concepts

Simulation Techniques

Motion Capture and Editing

Seminal Systems

Students should have enough of a sense of the history of the field, and be aware of some key systems and why they are significant. While the exact details of these systems are not important, an appreciation for why they were important is.

Bibliography

General Textbooks

Understanding of the basic material of visual computing is expected of all students. Many of the topics from papers are also discussed here. While a student is not expected to have read all of these, at least one general text should be reviewed. These books are not explicitly referenced in the topic list.

Donald Hearn and M. Pauline Baker. "Computer Graphics, C Version (2nd Edition)", Prentice Hall, 1996
This book has a solid discussion of many important topics, but lacks a discussion of more modern topics. Its section on modeling is particularly good.
Peter Shirley. "Fundamentals of Computer Graphics", A.K. Peters, 2002.
A very new book that works thourhg a range of topics both basic and advanaced. It's coverage is patchy in some areas.
Alan Watt and Fabio Policarpo. "3D Games: Real-time Rendering and Software Technology", Addison Wesley, 2001.
The graphics aspects of this book are up to date and quite readable. Some topics are missing (since this really isn't a graphics text), and much of the book is about non-graphics topics. An excellent resource for real-time rendering.
Alan Watt. "3D Computer Graphics", Addison-Wesley, 1999
This book is intended as a first course graphics textbook.
Foley, van Dam, Feiner and Hughes. "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (2nd Edition)", Addison Wesley.
While this book is a classic, and is the standard reference, it is not an easy book to learn from. It's treatment of many topics is dismal (at best). It is very comprehensive, albeit dated.

Specialty Textbooks

These books are either more specialized or primarily concerned with other things, but are the best resources for many graphics topics.

Woo, Neider, Davis, and Shreiner. "OpenGL Programming Guide", Addison Wesley, 1999.
This book is more than just documentation of the OpenGL library: it also does a good job of explaining the underlying concepts.
Gomez and Velho. "Image Processing for Computer Graphics." Springer Verlag, 1997
A nice textbook. A bit gratuitously mathematical, but much more readable and relevant than the typical engineering text. The whole book is a bit overkill for preparing for the qual.
Sillion and Puech, "Radiosity and Global Illumination," Morgan Kaufman, 1994.
A standard textbook for global illumination, with full and careful definition of all the physical quantities, terms, and equations.
Wolberg. "Digital Image Warping". IEEE Press.
The Image Warping methods are a bit dated, but its a very readable discussion of image processing. Out of print, unfortunately.
Richard Parent. "Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques". Morgan-Kaufman, 2001.
A nice, rigourous treatment of the fundamental topics. The book covers a smattering of advanced topics. What it covers in general it seems to cover well.

Notes

  • [Hanrahan:1996:SP] Pat Hanrahan's course notes on signal processing.
  • Gleicher's notes on signal processing.

    Papers

    1. [Akeley:1988:HPR] Kurt Akeley and Tom Jermoluk. "High-Performance Polygon Rendering", Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 88), 22(4), pp. 239-246 (August 1988, Atlanta, Georgia).
    2. [Baraff:1998:LSI] David Baraff and Andrew Witkin. Large Steps in Cloth Simulation, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 43-54 (July 1998, Orlando, Florida). Addison Wesley. Edited by Michael Cohen. ISBN 0-89791-999-8.
    3. [Beier:1992:FIM] Thaddeus Beier and Shawn Neely. "Feature-based image metamorphosis," Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 92), 26 (2), pp. 35-42.
    4. [Berman:1994:MPA] Deborah F. Berman and Jason T. Bartell and David H. Salesin. Multiresolution Painting and Compositing, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 94, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 85-90 (July 1994, Orlando, Florida). ACM Press. Edited by Andrew Glassner. ISBN 0-89791-667-0.
    5. [Brooks:1986:WAD] Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.. "Walkthrough -- A dynamic graphics system for simulating virtual buildings", Proceedings of 1986 Workshop on Interactive 3D Graphics, pp. 9-21 (October 1986).
    6. [Burt:1983:AMS] P. J. Burt and E. H. Adelson. A multiresolution spline with application to image mosaics, ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2 (4), pp. 217-236 (October 1983)
    7. [Catmull:1972:ASF] Edwin E. Catmull. "A System for Computer Generated Movies", Proc. ACM Annual Conf., pp. 422-431 (August 1972).
    8. [Chen:1995:QVI] Shenchang Eric Chen. "Quicktime VR - An Image-Based Approach to Virtual Environment Navigation", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 95, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 29-38
    9. [Cohen:1999:CAA] Cohen, Jonathan. "Concepts and Algorithms for Polygonal Simplification", SIGGRAPH 99 Course Tutorial #20: Interactive Walkthroughs of Large Geometric Datasets. pp. C1-C34.
    10. [Cook:1984:DRT] Cook, Porter, Carpenter, "Distributed Ray Tracing", SIGGRAPH 84.
    11. [Cook:1987:TRI] Cook, Carpenter, Catmull, "The Reyes Image Rendering Architecture", SIGGRAPH 87.
    12. [DeRose:1998:SSI] Tony DeRose and Michael Kass and Tien Truong. Subdivision Surfaces in Character Animation, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 85-94 (July 1998, Orlando, Florida). Addison Wesley. Edited by Michael Cohen. ISBN 0-89791-999-8.
    13. [Debevec:1996:MAR] Paul E. Debevec, Camillo J. Taylor and Jitendra Malik. "Modeling and Rendering Architecture from Photographs: A Hybrid Geometry- and Image-Based Approach", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 11-20 (August 1996, New Orleans, Louisiana).
    14. [Debevec:1997:RHD] Paul E. Debevec and Jitendra Malik. "Recovering High Dynamic Range Radiance Maps from Photographs", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 97, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 369-378
    15. [Funkhouser:1992:MOL] Thomas Funkhouser, Carlo Sequin and Seth Teller, "Management of Large Amounts of Data in Interactive Building Walkthroughs", Proceedings 1992 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 1992, pp 11-20.
    16. [Funkhouser:1993:ADA] Thomas Funkhouser and Carlo Sequin, "Adaptive Display Algorithm for Interactive Frame Rates During Visualization of Complex Virtual Environments", SIGGRAPH 93, pp 247-254
    17. [Garland:1997:SSU] Michael Garland and Paul S. Heckbert. Surface Simplification Using Quadric Error Metrics, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 97, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 209-216 (August 1997, Los Angeles, California). Addison Wesley. Edited by Turner Whitted. ISBN 0-89791-896-7.
    18. [Gleicher:1998:RMT] Michael Gleicher. Retargeting Motion to New Characters, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 33-42 (July 1998, Orlando, Florida). Addison Wesley. Edited by Michael Cohen. ISBN 0-89791-999-8.
    19. [Grassia98] F. Sebastian Grassia. Practical Parameterization of Rotations Using the Exponential Map, Journal of Graphics Tools, 3(3), pp. 29-48 (1998). ISSN 1086-7651.
    20. [Gooch:1998:ANL] Amy Gooch, Bruce Gooch, Peter Shirley and Elaine Cohen, "A Non-Photorealistic Lighting Model for Automatic Technical Illustration", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, pp 447-452, 1998.
    21. [Gortler:1996:TL] Steven J. Gortler, Radek Grzeszczuk, Richard Szeliski and Michael F. Cohen, "The Lumigraph", Computer Graphics: Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, pp 31-42.
    22. [Guskov:1999:MSP] Igor Guskov and Wim Sweldens and Peter Schröder. Multiresolution Signal Processing for Meshes, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 99, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 325-334 (August 1999, Los Angeles, California). Addison Wesley Longman. Edited by Alyn Rockwood. ISBN 0-20148-560-5.
    23. [Haelberli:1990:PBN] Paul Haeberli, "Paint by Numbers: Abstract Image Representations", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 90, pp 207-214, 1990
    24. [Heckbert:1989:FOT] Paul Heckbert, "Fundamentals of Texture Mapping and Image Warping," Master's thesis, UCB/CSD 89/516, CS Division, U.C. Berkeley, June 1989.
    25. [Heckbert:1990:ART] Paul S. Heckbert. "Adaptive Radiosity Textures for Bidirectional Ray Tracing," Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 90), 24 (4), pp. 145-154.
    26. [Hoppe:1996:PM] Hugues Hoppe. Progressive Meshes, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 99-108 (August 1996, New Orleans, Louisiana). Addison Wesley. Edited by Holly Rushmeier. ISBN 0-201-94800-1.
    27. [Jensen:1995:PMI] Henrik Wann Jensen and Niels Jørgen Christensen. "Photon maps in bidirectional Monte Carlo ray tracing of complex objects", Computers & Graphics, 19 (2), pp. 215-224 (March 1995).
    28. [Kajiya:1986:TRE] James T. Kajiya. "The Rendering Equation", Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 86), 20(4), pp. 143-150.
    29. [Kowalski:1999:ARO] Michael A. Kowalski, Lee Markosian, J.D. Northrup, Lubomir Bourdev, Ronen Barzel, Loring S. Holden and John F. Hughes, "Art-Based Rendering of Fur, Grass and Trees", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 99, pp 433-438, 1999.
    30. [Lasseter:1987:POT] John Lasseter. Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 87), 21(4), pp. 35-44 (July 1987, Anaheim, California). Edited by Maureen C. Stone.
    31. [Leffler:1990:TMM] Samuel J. Leffler and William T. Reeves and Eben F. Ostby. "The Menv Modelling and Animation Environment", Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation, 1(1), pp. 33-40.
    32. [Levoy:1996:LFR] Marc Levoy and Pat Hanrahan, "Light Field Rendering", Computer Graphics: Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, pp 31-42.
    33. [Litwinowicz:1997:PIA] Peter Litwinowicz, "Processing Images and Video for an Impressionist Effect", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 97, pp 407-414, 1997.
    34. [Luebke:1995:PAM] David Luebke and Chris Georges, "Portals and Mirrors: Simple, Fast Evaluation of Potentially Visible Sets", Proceedings of the 1995 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 1995, pp 105--106
    35. [Maciejewski:1990:DWT] Anthony A. Maciejewski. Dealing with the Ill-Conditioned Equations of Motion for Articulated Figures, IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, 10 (3), pp. 63-71 (May 1990).
    36. [McMillan:1995:PMA] Leonard McMillan and Gary Bishop, "Plenoptic Modeling: An Image-Based Rendering System", Computer Graphics: Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 95, pp 39-46.
    37. [Meier:1996:PRF] Barbara J. Meier, "Painterly Rendering for Animation", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, pp 477-484, 1996.
    38. [Perlin:1985:AIS] Ken Perlin. An Image Synthesizer, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 85), 19 (3), pp. 287-296 (July 1985, San Francisco, California). Edited by B. A. Barsky.
    39. [Porter:1984:CDI] T. Porter, T. Duff, "Compositing Digital Images," Computer Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 18:3, pp. 253-259, 1984.
    40. [Reynolds:1987:FHA] Craig W. Reynolds. Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 87), 21(4), pp. 25-34 (July 1987, Anaheim, California). Edited by Maureen C. Stone.
    41. [Sederberg:1986:FDO] Thomas W. Sederberg and Scott R. Parry. Free-Form Deformation of Solid Geometric Models, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 86), 20 (4), pp. 151-160 (August 1986, Dallas, Texas). Edited by David C. Evans and Russell J. Athay.
    42. [Seitz:1996:VMS] Steven M. Seitz and Charles R. Dyer, "View Morphing: Synthesizing 3D Metamorphoses Using Image Transforms", Computer Graphics: Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, pp 21-30.
    43. [Shoemake:1985:ARW] Ken Shoemake. Animating Rotation with Quaternion Curves, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 85), 19 (3), pp. 245-254 (July 1985, San Francisco, California). Edited by B. A. Barsky. (warning: the original paper had some errors - try to find the corrected one!)
    44. [Smith:1996:BSM] Alvy Ray Smith and James F. Blinn. "Blue Screen Matting," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 259-268.
    45. [Stam:1998:EEO] Jos Stam. Exact Evaluation of Catmull-Clark Subdivision Surfaces at Arbitrary Parameter Values, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 395-404 (July 1998, Orlando, Florida). Addison Wesley. Edited by Michael Cohen. ISBN 0-89791-999-8.
    46. [Strauss:1992:AO3] Paul S. Strauss and Rikk Carey. An object-oriented 3D graphics toolkit, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 92), 26 (2), pp. 341-349 (July 1992, Chicago, Illinois). Edited by Edwin E. Catmull. ISBN 0-201-51585-7.
    47. [Sutherland:1963:SAM] I. E. Sutherland. "Sketchpad - A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System", Proceedings of the Spring Joint Computer Conference, (May 1963).
    48. [Teller:1991:VPF] Seth Teller and Carlo Sequin, "Visibility Preprocessing for Interactive Walkthroughs", SIGGRAPH 91, pp 61-70
    49. [Winkenbach:1994:CPI] Georges Winkenbach and David H. Salesin, "Computer-Generated Pen-and-Ink Illustration", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 94, pp 91-100, 1994
    50. [Williams:1983:PP] Lance Williams. Pyramidal Parametrics, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 83), 17 (3), pp. 1-11 (July 1983, Detroit, Michigan).
    51. [Witkin:2001:PBM] Andrew Witkin. Physically Based Modelling. SIGGRAPH 2001 Course Tutorial.
    52. [Wolberg:1998:IMA] George Wolberg. "Image morphing: a survey," The Visual Computer, 14(8-9), pp. 360-372 (1998). Warping]
    53. [Zeleznik96] Robert C. Zeleznik, Kenneth P. Herndon and John F. Hughes. "SKETCH: An Interface for Sketching 3D Scenes", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, pp. 163-170