Computer Graphics Course

Lesson 1 • Color Models and Spaces

Introduces RGB, HSV, and perceptual color models used in graphics pipelines. Students apply color space conversions relevant to display and rendering workflows.

Lesson 2 • Coordinate Systems and Transformations

Defines 2D and 3D Cartesian spaces, homogeneous coordinates, and basic transforms. Builds the mathematical vocabulary used throughout all subsequent chapters.

Lesson 3 • History and Scope of Computer Graphics

Traces the evolution from early raster displays to modern GPU-driven rendering. Contextualizes the field's breadth across games, film, simulation, and visualization.

Lesson 4 • Overview of the Graphics Pipeline

Maps the stages from geometry input to final pixel output in a standard pipeline. Provides a mental model that anchors every topic covered in later chapters.

Lesson 1 • Anti-Aliasing and Sampling

Explains aliasing artifacts and supersampling, MSAA, and filter-based solutions. Links sampling theory to image quality decisions made throughout the pipeline.

Lesson 2 • Line Drawing Algorithms

Covers Bresenham's and DDA algorithms for efficient integer-based line rasterization. Connects pixel-level accuracy to the broader rasterization stage of the pipeline.

Lesson 3 • Clipping Algorithms

Introduces Cohen-Sutherland and Sutherland-Hodgman algorithms for viewport clipping. Ensures only visible geometry is processed, optimizing rendering performance.

Lesson 4 • Polygon Filling Techniques

Teaches scanline fill, flood fill, and edge-table methods for solid polygon rendering. Prepares students for triangle rasterization used in 3D pipelines.

Lesson 1 • Quaternions for Rotation

Introduces quaternion algebra as a gimbal-lock-free rotation representation. Covers SLERP interpolation for smooth animation transitions between orientations.

Lesson 2 • Mesh Representation and Data Structures

Covers vertex buffers, index buffers, half-edge structures, and winged-edge meshes. Prepares students to store and traverse 3D geometry efficiently in code.

Lesson 3 • Viewing and Projection

Constructs view matrices using look-at formulations and derives perspective and orthographic projections. Connects camera math to the vertex transformation stage.

Lesson 4 • Vectors and Matrices in 3D

Reviews dot product, cross product, and matrix operations essential for 3D graphics. Establishes the linear algebra toolkit used in every subsequent 3D computation.

Lesson 1 • Light Sources and Properties

Defines directional, point, spot, and area light types and their mathematical representations. Establishes the illumination inputs consumed by all shading models.

Lesson 2 • Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular Shading

Derives the Phong and Blinn-Phong reflectance models component by component. Students implement these models in shader code and tune material parameters.

Lesson 3 • Shadow Techniques

Covers shadow maps, shadow volumes, and percentage-closer filtering for soft shadows. Connects shadow algorithms to depth buffer concepts from the projection chapter.

Lesson 4 • Physically Based Rendering Fundamentals

Introduces the microfacet BRDF, energy conservation, and metallic-roughness workflow. Bridges classical shading to modern PBR pipelines used in production.

Lesson 1 • Normal and Bump Mapping

Derives tangent-space normal mapping and compares it to object-space and world-space variants. Extends surface detail without increasing mesh polygon count.

Lesson 2 • Texture Mapping Fundamentals

Covers UV coordinates, texture sampling, and wrap modes for applying 2D images to 3D surfaces. Connects texture lookups to the fragment shader stage.

Lesson 3 • Advanced Surface Maps

Covers displacement, ambient occlusion, roughness, and emissive maps in PBR workflows. Integrates multiple texture channels into a cohesive material definition.

Lesson 4 • Mipmapping and Filtering

Explains mipmap generation, trilinear filtering, and anisotropic filtering for distant surfaces. Addresses aliasing artifacts caused by texture minification.

Lesson 1 • Vertex Shader Programming

Covers vertex attribute inputs, uniform buffers, and MVP transform implementation in shader code. Students produce correctly transformed clip-space geometry.

Lesson 2 • Compute Shaders and GPGPU

Introduces compute shader dispatch, shared memory, and synchronization barriers. Enables students to offload non-graphics parallel tasks to the GPU.

Lesson 3 • GPU Architecture Overview

Explains SIMD execution, warp/wavefront scheduling, and memory hierarchy on modern GPUs. Provides the hardware context needed to write efficient shader code.

Lesson 4 • Fragment Shader Programming

Implements lighting equations, texture sampling, and output blending in fragment shaders. Connects shading models from Chapter 4 to executable GPU code.

Lesson 1 • Whitted Ray Tracing

Implements recursive ray tracing with reflection, refraction, and shadow rays. Demonstrates global effects not achievable with local shading models alone.

Lesson 2 • Monte Carlo Path Tracing

Introduces Monte Carlo integration, importance sampling, and the rendering equation. Students build a unidirectional path tracer with direct and indirect illumination.

Lesson 3 • Denoising and Hybrid Rendering

Covers temporal accumulation, AI-based denoising, and rasterization-ray tracing hybrids. Connects offline path tracing quality to real-time feasibility.

Lesson 4 • Ray Casting Fundamentals

Derives ray-sphere, ray-triangle, and ray-AABB intersection tests from first principles. Establishes the core primitive operations used in all ray tracing algorithms.

Lesson 1 • Level of Detail and Culling

Introduces LOD switching, mesh simplification, frustum culling, and occlusion culling. Maintains frame rate by reducing geometry processed per frame.

Lesson 2 • Screen-Space Effects

Implements SSAO, SSR, and SSGI using depth and normal buffers from the G-buffer. Adds global illumination approximations at low computational cost.

Lesson 3 • Deferred Rendering Pipeline

Constructs a G-buffer with position, normal, albedo, and material channels for deferred shading. Decouples geometry and lighting passes to support many dynamic lights.

Lesson 4 • Procedural and Terrain Rendering

Covers noise-based terrain generation, tessellation shaders, and clipmap LOD for large terrains. Integrates procedural techniques into the advanced rendering pipeline.