Introduction to Computer Graphics and Imaging

This is the introductory, prerequisite course in the computer graphics sequence that introduces students to the technical concepts behind creating computer generated images. Through this course, students will gain a firm working knowledge of the underlying mathematical concepts of synthetic imagery (including triangles, meshes, normals, interpolation, world spaces, texture mapping, etc.) Students will also explore the fundamentals of light and color and how they interact with the environment through lighting, shading, and material models varying in realism and complexity. Ultimately, students will come to an understanding of rasterization and ray tracing technology for creating visually-compelling synthetic images, and briefly examine how they extend to animation and inverse rendering. Students will additionally be exposed to a high-level survey of topics in computer graphics, such as acceleration structures, anti-aliasing, and depth of field. Starter code will be provided to guide students through development and give them familiarity with industry-level tools. The class will conclude with a final project in which students pursue in-depth a specific topic of interest.Prerequisites: Linear Algebra and familiarity with Python and debugging.