About CS667
Professor:
Steve Marschner, srm@cs.cornell.edu
Office hours: TBA
Admin:
Kelly Patwell, patwell@cs.cornell.edu
Time and place:
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:55–4:10, 368 Hollister
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 is dynamics: applications of physics to compute very realistic animations of physical objects. We will focus on mass-spring systems and rigid bodies.
Coursework
The coursework consists of:
- doing homework assignments, some of which may be small implementation projects,
- writing lecture notes ("scribing") for one lecture,
- presenting one paper from the computer graphics literature to the class, and
- proposing, developing, and implementing a final project in teams of two to four.
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. In particular, I no longer consider CS467 a prerequisite for this class; CS465 or another basic graphics class that covers ray tracing, or equivalent experience, should be sufficient. A certain level of mathematical sophistication, particularly in probability and multivariable calculus, will be needed to make it through the Monte Carlo rendering and the physics.
Steve Marschner (srm@cs.cornell.edu)