CS667: Physics Based Rendering—Spring 2005

Announcements

15 February Example.tex has been added to the LaTeX page.

10 February LaTeX information page has been added.

About CS667

Professor:
Steve Marschner, srm@cs.cornell.edu
    Office hours: T,Th 3:00–4:00, 5159 Upson

TA:
Jon Moon, jmoon@cs.cornell.edu
    Office hours: W 2:30–3:30   F 1:30–2:30, 4143 Upson

Time and place:
Tuesday and Thursday, 1:25–2:40, 484 Rhodes

Overview

This class covers that part of computer graphics, and especially rendering, that is based on physical models of the real world. The main problem areas we will look at are light transport, light reflection, and dynamics. Light transport is the fundamental rendering problem of modeling how light flows around in an environment and determining the equilibrium state that becomes a rendered image. Light reflection forms the boundary conditions for light transport: the challenge is to build practical computer models for how light interacts with the surfaces in the environment. We will also look at more recent work on translucent materials that is beginning to blur the lines between the traditionally distinct problems of transport and reflection. The third problem area, dynamics, is a new one for this class: applications of physics to compute very realistic animations of physical objects. We will likely only get to particle systems and either gases (billowing smoke) or rigid bodies (falling blocks).

Coursework

The coursework consists of:

I expect to have students with a variety of backgrounds, so there will be flexibility in the work, and grades will take each student's starting point into account.

Steve Marschner (srm@cs.cornell.edu)