Research Members Publications

Computer Graphics II: Rendering

Content of the course

This course is part of the "Computer Graphics II" course, inside the Graphics, Vision, Robotics program of the MOSIG International Master in Grenoble. We focus on the rendering techniques: how to display a picture on the screen, so that it looks pleasing for the viewer:

• Models of materials and BRDFs (Phong, Fresnel, Torrance...)
• Shadows and shadow maps
• Global Illumination techniques
• Monte-Carlo ray-tracing
• Level-Of-Detail techniques
• Expressive Rendering

Practical Information

• Lectures take place at: Ense3-Ampère-B001, every Monday from 2 pm to 5 pm.
• Each lecture is followed by a practical, so you can test your knowledge from the lecture (and make sure you understood it...)
• These practicals use C++, OpenGL and GLSL. Most of the code is already written, with only a few functions to fill in.
• The practicals are not supervised. You have to do them in your spare time, either at home on your own computer, or in rooms E103 and E301 in the ENSIMAG building.
• The practicals will be marked.
• I'll be available by for any advice you might need.
• Marking of the practicals will be based on code and screen shots.

Organization and Practicals

October 25 : GPU programming and materials

• Introduction: PDF
• Material models: Phong, Lafortune, Fresnel, Torrance
• GPU programming: PDF
• GLSL basics: PDF
• Practical 1
• Suggested readings:
  • A reflection model for computer graphics, R. L. Cook and K. E. Torrance, Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH '81), Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 307-316, 1981. doi: 10.1145/965161.806819
  • Non-Linear Approximation of Reflectance Functions, E.P. Lafortune, S.C. Foo, K.E. Torrance and D.P. Greenberg. SIGGRAPH 97, pp 117-126. doi: 10.1145/258734.258801
  • An Inexpensive BRDF Model for Physically-based Rendering, Schlick, C. (1994). Computer Graphics Forum 13 (3):233 (Eurographics '94). doi:10.1111/1467-8659.1330233
  • Fresnel Reflection, NVidia white paper, 2002.
  • Rendering: Appearance Modeling in Vision and Graphics, by P. Belhumeur (course at Columbia)
  • Experimental Analysis of BRDF Models, by A. Ngan, F. Durand et W. Matusik
  • OpenGL Shading Language, by the OpenGL consortium.

November 08 : Textures, colors, real-time shadow algorithms

• Color models: PDF
• Textures: PDF
• Shadows: PDF
• Practical 2
• Suggested readings:
  • An excellent tutorial on color models
  • The reference about Simplex noise
  • The first paper about shadow mapping: Casting Curved Shadows on Curved Surfaces, Lance Williams, Computer Graphics, vol. 12, n° 3 (Siggraph 1978).
  • Shadow Mapping (Wikipedia).
  • An excellent Siggraph 2013 course: Efficient Real-Time shadows.
  • A good tutorial on practical implementation of shadow maps in GLSL.
  • Another tutorial on implementing shadow mapping in OpenGL.

November 15 : Global Illumination and Monte-Carlo ray-tracing

• Ray-tracing
• Global Illumination methods
• Monte-Carlo integration in 1D
• Monte-Carlo Ray-tracing
• Practical 3
• Suggested readings:
  • The rendering equation, by Jim T. Kajiya (Siggraph '86)
  • An improved illumination model for shaded display, by Turner Whitted (CACM, v. 23, n° 6) (original ray-tracing paper)
  • Distributed ray tracing, by Robert L. Cook et al. (Siggraph '84).
  • Modeling the interaction of light between diffuse surfaces, by Cindy M. Goral et al. (Siggraph '84) (original radiosity paper).
  • A rapid hierarchical radiosity algorithm, by Pat Hanrahan, David Salzman and Larry Aupperle (Siggraph '91, original paper for hierarchical radiosity).

November 22 : Expressive Rendering and Computational Photography

• Expressive Rendering
• Suggested readings:

Last modified on Monday November 3rd, 2014 any comment © Maverick 2011