main-homepage

December 19,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
Graphics Town Gallery

Our class made some really cool graphics towns! Check out some of them at Main.P4Gallery.

December 19,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Info on the Final Exam and Grades

Is here

December 14,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Topics for the final

I made a list of topics we covered in class to help you prepare for the final: Main.FinalGuide

December 14,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Final Exam

The final exam is 7:45 AM on Saturday, December 19th.

It will be in room 107 Psychology.

Don’t ask me how they decide these things. I don’t like it any more than you do.

December 11,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
Paintings Gallery

Check out some of the neat paintings our class made for Project 1 at Main.PaintGallery.

December 10,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
Signup Sheet Now Up

It’s _now_ up and outside my (Natasha’s) door. If you are using an unused late pass to sign up early, but won’t be in the building before class, you can email me. I’ll check my email 10 minutes before class and add you in, if the spot’s available (you may want to list two times).

December 10,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Final Project Demos

Final project demos will be Monday (12/14) from 4-5:30 on Tuesday (12/15) from 1-4.

If you have not used your late pass, you can sign up for a slot now (the sheet is on Natasha’s door), or tomorrow before class. Otherwise, you can sign up at the end of class.

December 9,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Global Game Jam

If you want to spend a weekend making games in January, check out: http://www.gameslearningsociety.org/ggj/

Sounds pretty cool.

December 8,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
**Class Cancelled 12/9 (University Closed)**

The University will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday, December 9th) because of the snow. So there will be no class. Office hours will also be cancelled.

Info on the University closure is here: http://www.news.wisc.edu/17451

December 7,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Answer Key for Written Assignment 3

Is at Main.W3Key.

December 6,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Final Project Deadline

Because of the odd mid-week end of the semester, the final project deadline is a little more complicated. The exact details will still be worked out so that they are fair. However:

• The deadline for “ontime” projects will be Sunday, 12/13. That is, if you turn in the project before Monday morning, it will not be late.
• Demos will be on Monday and Tuesday afternoons 12/14 and 12/15. In general, we will evaluate your project’s functionality at the demo. If you want to fix your program after the demo, you’ll have to make arrangements with us at the demo. If you take this option, you’ll have to document the changes specifically.
• You can turn in final versions of things until Wednesday 12/16 (that is before Thursday). Late penalties to be determined. Note: this is mainly for documentation, since your program’s functionality will be tested at your demo.

December 6,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
This week in 559

This week in 559, we’ll talk about Color, Perception, Rendering, and do class evals. You’ll probably be working on your projects as well. Note: there will be a change in the due date for the final project - be on the lookout.

• Monday (12/7) - Lecture on Color
• Wednesday (12/9) - Finish up Color, discuss project grading , do course evals
• Friday (12/11) - Rendering and Ray Tracing, Course Evals
• Monday (12/14) - Wrap Up Lecture, exam review (yes, there is a lecture on Monday)

December 5,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Bug in GrTown Code

On the Main.GrTownFAQ page, there’s a bug fix - to a 9 year old bug that was caught by a very observant student. I hadn’t caught it in 9 years! Anyway, its subtle, but if you are hooking up roads and not getting the expected behavior, you might want to make this 1 character fix.

November 30,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
**Catching up on Lecture “Notes”**

I had fallen behind on getting the audio and notes online. All the audio is now there - notes are harder, since the lectures are following them more loosely.

November 29,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Subdivision curve demos

If you want to see the 4 point scheme in action (we’ll talk about it in class on 11/30):http://www.multires.caltech.edu/teaching/demos/java/4point.htm

Corner cutting is illustrated:http://www.multires.caltech.edu/teaching/demos/java/chaikin.htm

This one lets you compare a few schemes:http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/~jarek/Split&Tweak/

November 29,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Lecture Re-Ordering

I’m going to re-order the lectures a bit to put material useful for the project sooner.

• Monday 11/30 - we’ll talk more about surfaces, including some very practical surface things you can try for the project
• Wednesday 12/2 - we’ll wrap up talking about surfaces (if we haven’t already) and move on to talking about animation.
• Friday 12/4 - we might start talking about rendering, or we might just talk more about animation

We’ll move on to perception and color next week.

November 29,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Homework assignment cancelled

The surfaces and rendering homework assignment is cancelled. I will distribute some questions once we’ve covered the material so you can practice to make sure you understand it.

November 27,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Computational Geometry

If you’re interested in things related to geometry, CS558 will be taught next semester by Vadim Shapiro. It covers a range of topics in how to create algorithms for processing and analyzing geometry. Topics like convex hulls, high-dimensional searching, shape characterization, triangulations, point set membership, etc. These kinds of things are useful in graphics, visualization, computer aided design, … The class is at 1:00 on MWF.

November 25,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
TA Office Hours next week

I (the TA) will be away next Monday, November 30. I’ll hold those office hours on Wednesday, December 2 (ie from 11:00-12:00), and will still be holding office hours on Tuesday.

November 25,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
**Project 3 Rubric & Criteria Up (and grades sent out)**

The rubric is at Main.Proj3Rubric. Grading criteria is at Main.P3Grading. The grades were emailed to your cs.wisc.edu email (as for the other assignments).

November 23,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Bug in the ShaderAssignment

There is a bug in ShaderAssignment.cpp (in the sample code for the homework assignment). The fix is to add the line:

    if (shaderProgram) shaderInit = true;

after the “if (error){ }” near the end of the file

An updated version will be made available soon can be downloaded from the project page.

November 21,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Graphics Town FAQ

I am putting answers to questions about the project on the GrTownFAQ page. It has an RSS feed if you want to keep track of it.

November 15,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Project 4

The description of Project 4 is at Main.GrTown. Its not due for a few weeks, but you might want to start early (the Practice Programming assignment will also be helpful).

You are allowed to (encouraged, actually) to work with a partner for this project. Read the project description for details. Note that you must pick your partner before Thanksgiving.

November 13,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
Project 3 Demo Sign Up

For Project 3, we’re doing live demos to see your project (and grade it)! We’ll be holding the demos Monday, November 23rd (the week after next) from 11am-1pm and 4:30pm-5:30pm. Please sign up for a fifteen minute slot on the sign-up sheet outside Natasha’s office (5385). We’re doing this on a first-come first-served basis, but I’ll also bring the sheet in to class on Monday. If you are _really_ time-constrained on the project demo day and have very few timeslots that work, you can email me and we’ll fit you in.

November 13,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Practice Assignment 3

Practice assignment 3 has been announce at Main.Practice3. It’s not due until November 25th, but in case you want to start sooner…

Remember that there is a written assignment due Wednesday the 18th.

November 11,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
**Why not videotape lectures?**

If you’re curious why I am only making audio recordings of the lectures this year, check out Main.Video.

November 10,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Bug in Example Code for Proj 3

An observant student noticed that the numbers on the tension control in the sample solution for project 3 were off: I had forgotten to divide by 2!

November 10,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Written Assignment 3

Written Assignment 3 is posted at Main.Written3 and is due next Wednesday (the 18th).

November 9,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Classes next semester

There are several classes related to graphics next semester:

• CS679 - Computer Games Technology - see http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gleicher/Web/Courses/Games09Announce
• CS838 - Visualization - see http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gleicher/Web/Courses/Vis09Announce
• CS638 - Computational Photography
• CS638 - Introduction to Human Computer Interaction

(yes, I am teaching two of those)

November 8,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Trivial Bug Fix

A student found a very small bug in the project 3 framework code. So small that we never noticed it. If you really care, the fix is posted on the Main.Project3 page - but don’t worry about it. We won’t check for it.

November 4,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Office Hours Cancelled

I need to cancel my office hours tomorrow (Thursday 11/5). I’ll have extra office hours Friday at 11am.

November 3,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Midterm Grades

Information on the midterm (including the answer key) is at Main.MidtermStats. We’re still deciding how to give back individual grades - probably later today.

November 2,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Project and Exam Grading

Since you’re probably wondering (and the Policies and BasicInfo page don’t explain this):

Each component of the class (projects and exams) is graded seperately. That way each project and each exam can be “curved” independently. So, for projects and exams, we do translate each into a letter grade, and then average these based on the formula given on the page.

That said, I hesitate to assign the letter grades immediately, since the borders are fuzzy. Someone who just misses the cutoff might be given a little extra benefit of the doubt. So you can now look at Main.P1Grading to turn your score into a letter grade.

November 1,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
**This week in 559 (November 1st Edition)**

This week in 559:

• Monday - we’ll talk about cubics and see how we make curves to do useful things. We’ll also talk about some pragmatic issues you might care about for your trains.
• Wednesday - we’ll talk about Bezier curves, which are an important concept for a lot of graphics. We will not have a homework due.
• Friday - we’ll move on to talk about textures (hopefully)

Note: there is no homework due this week. The written assignment was cancelled - we might give a different one after the project.

With any luck, we should get the exam and project 2 back to you this week.

October 27,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
**Project 1 Rubric Up (and grades sent out)**

The rubric is at Main.Proj1Rubric. The grades were emailed to your cs.wisc.edu email (as for the other assignments).

October 26,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Project 3 - Trains and Roller Coasters

Project3 has been posted. I am guessing that no one is going to look at it until after the exam, and it will be hard for you to do much until we’ve learned a bit about curves. But it is posted.

The third written assignment will either be rescheduled or cancelled, based on whether we cover enough material in class.

October 23,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
TA Office Hours Today

Professor Gleicher is busy today, so I’ll be holding office hours from 1:30-2:30 today.

October 23,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Corrected W2 Answers

There was a mistake in the W2 answers - they are fixed now.

October 22,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Class Topics and the Exam

We won’t get to start talking about curves tomorrow, so they won’t be on the exam. The midterm will cover all the topics in the calendar up to (but not including) curves.

If you’re curious about the exam, all of the old exams can be found by looking at old course web sites. Remember that in previous years, the material may have been different.

October 22,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Answers to Written Assignment 2

Is available at Main.W2Answers. We may not be able to grade your assignment before the exam, however, you might want to look over the solutions to make sure you understand them. (the exam is coming soon)

October 22,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Exam Time and Place

The midterm exam will be 7:15-9:15pm on Wednesday, October 28th in Room 1325 CS.

October 22,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Visual Studio on CSL machines

Some people have gotten confused by this: Visual Studio 2008 is called “vs9” by the CSL. (The 9 refers to the version number not the year). So the directory for the correct version of FLTK for use with Visual Studio 2008 is: s:/fltk-1.1.9/i386_winxp/vs9/.

Note: in previous years, we used an older version of Visual Studio, so tutorials on the old websites might no longer be as useful.

October 21,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Things added to P2 page

People have pointed out some things about project 2 that have been added to the top of the page. Nothing major, except it might explain why your colors look a little off or the sample solution might behave a bit different than you expect.

October 19,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
P2 Hint/Clarification

I just made a hint/clarification on the Main.Project2 page (its right up top and dated today)

October 18,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
**This week in 559 (week 8, October 19th)**

We got a little off schedule last week. So this week, we’ll take some time to fill in some of the things that got skipped, which will delay getting to curves. Make sure you’ve read the week 7 readings, the week 8 readings can wait until after Friday’s lecture.

The plan is:

• Monday - talk about viewing and perspective, and hopefully a quick survey of visibility
• Wednesday - review the lighting model (introduced last week by Prof. Zhang) and talk about issues with meshes
• Friday - Start talking about curves

I will update the Calendar and reading schedule accordingly.

And yes, there’s a project due on Wednesday, and an exam next week.

October 13,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Written Assignment

Question 3 on the written assignment involves perspective transformations for viewing, which we haven’t spoken about in class. You do not need to answer that question. (but you should be able to, since the topic is well-covered by the readings)

October 8,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Written Assignment 2

Written Assignment 2, Due on October 14, is described here.

October 8,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Project 2 files

Have been fixed

October 8,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
FLTK Tutorial Up

New FLTK Tutorial is up here: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/graphics/Courses/559-f2009/Main/FLTKTutorial.

October 7,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
No office hours next week

The professor will not have office hours on Wednesday the 14th, or Thursday the 15th.

October 6,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
Greg’s Demo Up

Greg’s OpenGL demo files are available on the tutorials page: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/graphics/Courses/559-f2009/Main/Tutorials.

October 6,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Extension on the Practice Program Due Date

Because of issues in getting the tutorials updated, we are going to be lenient with Practice Program 2. We will not consider your program late if you turn it in by Sunday, October 11th.

October 5,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Project 2

Project 2 is now posted. Its due in about 2 weeks. Its actually a lot smaller than the other projects (in terms of its minimum requirements), but you might now want to wait until the last minute.

In particular, I recommend that you at least download the framework code and make sure you can get it to compile.

October 2,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Practice Program 2: OpenGL

The next practice program is announced at Main.Practice2. Unfortunately, we haven’t updated the tutorials on setting on Visual Studio 2008 yet. (there are links to older tutorials based on VS2005 linked to from the practice assignment)

If you want to get a copy of FlTk for VS2008 for your home machine, you can download it here. If you’re using it on CSL windows machines, note that the directory is S:\fltk\i386_winxp\vs9 (vs9 is for vs2008, vs8 is for vis studio 2005).

October 1,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
Sample Solutions to Written Assignment 1 Are Up

Sample Solutions are up. For now it’s just the answers. More detailed solutions coming.

September 30,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Required Examples for Project 1

The required example images that you must turn in with Project 1 are described at Main.P1Samples.

September 30,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Project 1 Questions

The questions to answer in your Project 1 documentation are describere at P1Qs. The sample image requirements are coming soon.

September 29,2009 by eilbert BAD LINK
TA Out Today

I’m feeling really sick so I won’t be at office hours today. Assuming I feel better by tomorrow, I’ll hold office hours Wednesday from 11-12.

September 27,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
An Extension for Project 1

I have decided to give everyone some extra time for Project 1. For this project (and this project only), your project will not be considered late if it is turned in on or before Friday (Oct 2nd). It will be considered very late if it is turned in after Sunday (Oct 4th).

September 27,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Programming Hints

I made a page at Main.ProgHints to put answers to generic programming questions people are asking me.

September 25,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Downsample examples

Examples of my sample implementation using various downsampling kernels are at Main.Downsample. The differences are not as dramatic as with upsampling.

September 24,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Questions from the index cards

I typed in most (if not all) of the questions people handed in on Wednesday the 22nd on the page Main.Q0922. I plan on trying to discuss as many as possible in class, but in the event I don’t get to all of them (there are a lot), many are answered on the page Main.Q0922.

September 24,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Hints on Painting

I made a hints page for painting at Main.PaintHints. Right now, there’s only a very basic example program. Over time, I expect to add more, put answers to questions people ask, etc.

September 21,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Hints for Project 1 Resize

I put some notes about the sample solution for resize (as well as an executable to try out at Main.ResizeHints.

September 15,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
**Project 1 Announced!**

Project 1 is announced here.

September 14,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Written Assignment 1

Is now posted at Main.Written1 and is due on Wednesday, September 23rd.

September 10,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
C++ / Visual Studio / Images Tips Session

Based on the survey, there is no good time for scheduling a help session - at most half the people can come.

But: I’ve reserved room 1325 CS from 4:00-5:00 on Monday, September 12th, which is the best of the timeslots based on people’s availability. If it seems better to move to a computing lab like 1358, we can do that (and will leave a note on the board).

Bring questions / topics you’d like to hear about.

September 9,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
First Asssignment

The “Programming Practice” Assignment is posted. It is (here), or click the link on the sidebar (its “Practice 1”). It is due on Wednesday, September 16th (but you should know that).

September 8,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Lecture Notes

If you look on the sidebar (left) you’ll see a Lecture Notes link. I will post my notes, audio recordings, and other things I have. No promises that these are useful to anyone other than me - my notes really are notes for myself to give the lecture.

September 7,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Class Survey

The assignment for this week (due Wednesday) is to take the “Entry Survey” on the class page on Learn@UW. The survey is used to help us plan the course - your answers won’t be considered in grading or anything.

Log onto Learn@UW at https://learnuw.wisc.edu/. Go to the CS559 2009 web page (you should have access to it). Pick “surveys” from the NavBar at the top. There should be one survey called “Entry Survey”.

September 3,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Getting Visual Studio 2008

As many of you already know, as students, you can get a lot of Microsoft products (including Visual Studio 2008) at http://www.dreamspark.com. There are some other campus mechanisms (like MSDNAA).

However: downloading something really huge (like Visual Studio) requires a lot of bandwidth. So, for those of you who need to get Visual Studio onto your own machine but do not have a fast connection (or want to mess with downloading it), we are arranging to have some DVDs for you to borrow. Details coming soon.

If you do install VS2008 (also known as VS9), make sure you get all the current service packs.

You might want to get this set up sooner rather than later, a first programming assignment (albeit a small one) is going to be due in less than 2 weeks.

September 3,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
**If you have the flu…**

If you have the flu, do not come to class. (but please send email to the professor and TA telling them, as soon as you are able).

September 2,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
No Class on Monday, 9/7 for Labor Day

I had forgotten to say on the calendar that there is no class on labor day. I’ll fix that.

August 27,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
C++ in 559

The programming assignments for this class will require you to program in C++. For some info on this, see the C++ for 559 page

August 27,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
Books

If you want to know what books to buy, look at the Books page.

June 29,2009 by gleicher BAD LINK
FlTk zip file

should be pub:fltk119vs9.zip