An introduction to computer graphics programming using OpenGL.  The course will cover the primary components of image synthesis, including geometry, transformations, lighting, shading, and texture mapping, as well as the basis of interaction such as events, callbacks, and object selection.  The course projects will emphasize applications of graphics in the sciences and mathematics.

Prerequisites: sound programming skills equivalent to successful completion of CS 108.  Solid spatial thinking skills are also useful.

Course content: we will cover as much of this material as we can, but will emphasize examples of graphical programming for scientific studies and effective communication through images.

• the OpenGL system and sample codes
• simple geometric modeling and GL/GLUT primitives
• double buffering of images
• description of course projects and operations
• color models and representation
• transformations
• managing transformation stacks and composing transformations
• heirarchical modeling
• display lists
• lights and shading models
• alpha channel and transparency
• effective communication through images
• application areas in the sciences
• examples of graphical programming for scientific studies
• event models and event-driven programming
• standard OpenGL callbacks
• animations based on the idle callback and time-based modeling
• creation and evaluation of user interfaces built on OpenGL events
• texture mapping
• antialiasing and fog effects
• evaluators and spline-based modeling
• object selection and direct interaction with images

Instructor:Dr. Cunningham is on leave in 1999-2000 from California State University Stanislaus to develop curriculum and projects for the introductory computer graphics course.  This project is also supported by the National Science Foundation.  This course at San Diego State is an early implementation of some of these ideas and your feedback is strongly desired.  Dr. Cunningham regularly attends various graphics events and has served in several positions with ACM SIGGRAPH, and <commercial> you are all encouraged to join ACM and SIGGRAPH as student members to see what is happening in the larger world of computer science and computer graphics. </commercial>

Because Dr. Cunningham is not a regular SDSU faculty member, he does not maintain an office or have an on-campus phone number.  Office hours are approximately 6:00 to 7:00 pm — right before class — in the BAM 120 lab.  Contact by email is encouraged and a listserv has been set up (cs496@lists.sdsu.edu) to allow everyone in class to communicate with everyone else for questions or comments.

Projects and examples:  Projects and examples will be posted regularly in the space below.  It is your responsibility to check this page from time to time between class meetings just in case your instructor should get ambitious and put up additional material that you could use to help you in your work.  Note that some of the materials here will require that your browser have the Acrobat Reader plug-in installed.

Background:  I have made available a few papers that explain some of the approaches I want to take with this course.  Students don’t often see the background concepts for the courses you take because you’re much more interested in the content, but I want to share this with the class so you can participate in helping me to develop these concepts.

• A paper that will be published in the journal Computers and Graphicsin the spring of 2000
• A paper that was presented at the SIGCSE 2000 conference in March 2000
• A paper that will be presented at the SIGGRAPH 2000 Educators Program in July 2000

Resources and examples:

• Getting started
• An overview of an OpenGL program
• An example:
• barchart.c
• Installing GLUT on a Windows machine
• Visual Communication module
• Description of visual communication
• Example code for visual communication
• complexFn.c
• heatDiff.c
• malaria.c
• implicit.c
• planeVolume.c
• potentialSurf.c
• Graphics modeling module
• Description of modeling
• Simple modeling
• Modeling with GLU and GLUT
• Examples of modeling
• points.c
• spiral.c
• poly.c
• primitivesMenu.c
• Viewing
• Description of viewing process
• A technical article on constructing the viewing transformation (from Graphics Gems I)
• Examples of viewing
• projections.c
• stereoView.c
• conics.c (example of clipping)
• Color
• Description of color in OpenGL
• Mike Bailey's slides on color for visualization
• Examples of use of color
• colorcubes.c
• RGBspace.c
• alphacolor.c
• HSVspace.c
• HLSspace.c
• Lighting and shading
• An unpublished paper on polygon interpolation as used in shading
• Description of lighting model
• threelightcube.c
• Description of shading model
• flatSmooth.c
• Modeling with transformations
• Discussion of transformations
• Examples of transformations
• rotations.c
• rabbit.c
• Some useful vector functions
• Science projects
• Discussion of science projects for graphics
• Event-driven programming
• Description of event handling
• Description of the MUI facility
• Sample code for color picker with MUI
• Brief MUI User Guide (Steve Baker)
• MJBexample.c — example of MUI code from Mike Bailey
• Fairly extensive set of MUI materials, including the MUI library and headers for several functionalities

(thanks to the EdCenter group — linux version should be coming soon!)
• mui.lib — MUI library for Windows
• mui.h
• browser.h
• displaylist.h
• gizmo.h
• hslider.h
• textlist.h
• uicolor.h
• vslider.h
• MUI for linux:  libmui.a
• put this file in your /usr/lib directory, and use the -lmui option on the compile line, along with -lGL -lGLU -lglut... etc...  on your home linux box.  This will be added to the SDSU ACM lab and its availability will be announced.
• Examples of event handling
• slidingcube.c
• movingcube.c
• menucube.c
• choicecube.c
• Some other concepts:  window/viewport, clipping, HSV color space
• Description of these concepts
• Examples of code for these concepts
• conicStereo.c
• Texture mapping
• Description of texture mapping
• Examples of texture mapping code
• mathChroma.c
• textureCube.c
• Animation
• Description of animation processes
• Examples of animation code
• movingcube.c
• rabbitears.c
• viewcube.c
• molanim.c (with associated molecule description file helvetane.pdb)
• Object selection
• Description of selection processes
• Example of selection code
• pool.c
• High-performance graphics techniques and games graphics
• Description of high-performance techniques
• Examples of coding
• textureFogCube.c
• multiSphere.c
• The texture map used here
• Evaluators and spline surfaces
• Description of spline concepts
• Examples of spline coding
• fullSurface.c
• splineCurve.c
• splineSurf4.c
• Hardcopy
• Description of computer graphics hardcopy

• You may send anonymous comments to the instructor, and are encouraged to do so whenever you wish.

• Project background for graphics context
• Projects in chemistry
• Projects in mathematics
• Projects in physics
• Project 1: simple modeling
• Project 2: lighting and transformations
• Project 3: events and control
• Project 4: texture maps
• Project 5: surface fly-through

Acknowledgements and copyright:  These materials were developed with the support of National Science Foundation grant DUE-9950121 and with sabbatical support from California State University Stanislaus.  All opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations in this work are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.  The San Diego Supercomputer Center also generously provided resources to support this work.  All are gratefully acknowledged.  All the material in this course and on these pages is copyright © 2000 by Steve Cunningham unless another creator and/or copyright is specifically noted, as is the case on some files.