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Project Inspiration!

Posted by Mariia Soroka, Aug 2025

Hi all,

To help you brainstorm project ideas, we've come up with a bunch of possible topics. Soon, we'll set up multiple threads on Ed—one thread per topic. Please use these threads as discussion boards: post your ideas there and engage if you're interested in working on something similar. We hope this will also help you find teammates. As a reminder, project groups are expected to have 3–5 members.

In about a week, we'll set up a google form where we'll ask which topic you'd like to work on and whether you've already formed a team. Don't worry if you don't have a team yet, or if there are only two of you! We'll take a look at all the responses and help form complete groups.

Realistic Rendering​

Extend an existing renderer to support more advanced light transport effects.

Examples of renderers:

Ideas and inspiration images:

  • Thin film iridescence. Images are from OpenPBR.

Artistic depiction​

Generate renderings that are non-photorealistic (NPR).

For example:

  • Painterly renderings. This example is from PainterEffect—a project by Jenny Chen, Tina Cheng, Mengjia Zhao, and Yihan Zhao from last year’s edition of the class.

Procedural modeling​

Generate models or worlds using randomness and algorithms.

Ideas:

Physics-based animation​

Animate liquids, fur, hair, squishy objects, textiles, snow, air bubbles etc.

Examples:

Games​

This is very self-descriptive. Create your own game! Make sure it has a strong graphics component—for example, interesting rendering or world generation.

Visualization​

Generate images and 3D content to illustrate data.

Some ideas:

  • Information visualization: data that is more abstract.

Music and audio​

Possible topics:

  • games with music as an integral element
  • graphics that are tied to / derived from music or audio
  • methods for generating audio related to 3D content

Here is a related paper Visual Rhythm and Beat.

Weird physics​

Compute images under weird physics assumptions.

Ideas:

  • Simulate black holes and gravitational lensing.
  • Create a game in 4D. Miegakure is an example of such a game.

Human-computer interaction and VR​

Come up with clever ways for users to control 3D scenes and content. This is a useful resource: A Survey on 3D Virtual Object Manipulation: From the Desktop to Immersive Virtual Environments.

Geometry and modeling​

Possible directions:

Computational fabrication​

Figure out how to manufacture something in a way that satisfies some design goals.

For example:

  • Find the shape of the ribbons such that, when woven, they form a specified shape. Take a look at this paper: 3D Weaving with Curved Ribbons. There is also a very cool video that shows fabrication and assembly processes.

High performance graphics​

Make something run fast on a CPU or a GPU.

High Performance Graphics (HPG) conference is the most relevant resource.

Here is the link to NVIDIA RTX Mega Geometry for some inspiration.

Something research-y​

If you have an idea that implements or extends a research paper, you will likely be building on the codebase of a research project.

Character animation​

Some keywords and ideas:

  • working with motion capture data
  • rigging and skinning
  • flocking and crowds

Examples: