CS 370

Computer Graphics Programming I

Fall 2024

Instructor(s):

Section 101 (12:30pm): Dr. David Babcock dbabcock@ycp.edu

Office Hours (KEC117A):

Dr. Babcock: M 11am-1pm, T 9:30-11am, W 1-2pm, R 9:30-11am, or by appointment

Class times:

Section	Days	Time	Room	Final Exam (Demos)
101	Tue/Thur	12:30-1:45PM	KEC 123	Sat, Dec 12 - 10:15am

Course Description

This course introduces the fundamental concepts in computer graphics programming. Topics include color models, basic coordinate transformations and clipping, raster and vector models, and basic rendering techniques. Additional topics may include texture mapping and ray tracing. Students will demonstrate these topics through projects using a standard graphics API as the programming platform.

Prerequisites

CS201 – Fundamentals of Computer Science II - with a grade of 2 or better

Required Textbook

Kessenich, Sellers, and Shreiner. OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 4.5 with SPIR-V – 9th Edition. Addison-Wesley, 2017.

Supplemental Resources

Hughes, van Dam, McGuire, Sklar, Foley, Feiner, and Akeley. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C – 3rd Edition. Addison-Wesley, 2014.

Course Structure and Expectations

Class meetings will be primarily discussion of questions related to the topic and/or working on corresponding lab exercises which are designed to illustrate the concepts from the lecture notes. Thus you should come to each class meeting prepared to work on the lab with any questions on the material. A series of homework assignments that will consist of both written and programming parts and will be assigned at approximately 1-2 week intervals, to be completed individually.

All the labs and assignments are cross platform and will be using the CLion IDE. Refer to the Resources page for installation instructions for the various external libraries needed for the course.

There will be homework assignments consisting of both written and programming components, three midterm exams, and one final project.

You will only get as much out of this elective course as you choose to put into it. Since we will be covering a significant amount of material in the course at a rapid pace, it is imperative that you keep up by participating in the class meetings. You must have completed the lab activities up to and including the one for the current class meeting in order to receive assistance on the current programming assignment. You will only get as much out of this elective course as you choose to put into it.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

To recognize the architecture of graphics systems, in particular graphics processor pipelines
To represent the geometry of 2D and 3D objects
To manipulate and transform objects both mathematically and programmatically
To apply lighting, clipping, and perspective effects to scenes
To produce advanced rendering effects such as bump and texture mapping
To write graphics programs using OpenGL and the GLFW library
To write simple vertex and shader programs using GLSL and the GLEW extension library

Policies

Grades

Grades are assigned on a 100-point scale:

Numeric Range Letter Grade

90-100 A (4.0)

87-90 B+ (3.5)

80-87 B (3.0)

77-80 C+ (2.5)

70-77 C (2.0)

60-70 D (1.0)

0-60 F (0.0)

Numeric Range	Letter Grade
90-100	A (4.0)
87-90	B+ (3.5)
80-87	B (3.0)
77-80	C+ (2.5)
70-77	C (2.0)
60-70	D (1.0)
0-60	F (0.0)

Your overall grade for the course will be determined as follows:

Homework assignments: 30%
Midterm exams: 30%
Final project: 40%

Course website

Please check the course web page, regularly for important announcements.

Exams

No make-up exams will be given without approval of the instructor prior to class unless proof of extreme emergency or illness is provided. All exams will be closed book, but syntax reference sheets will be provided.

You must receive a score of 70+ on at least one exam to earn a passing grade for the course.

Reading Assignments

Reading assignments are posted on the course schedule. I expect you to do the reading before class. Class time will be for asking questions about parts of the reading you did not understand to your satisfaction and working on the lab activity. The class format will consist of a brief discussions of the day’s topic, such that the majority of the time can focus on completing the corresponding lab.

Homework assignments

Homework assignments will be based on the lab activities performed during class and will include both written and programming components. Collaboration on homework assignments is encouraged, but each student must submit their own assignment solutions that demonstrate their understanding of the material.

You MUST make a legitimate attempt to complete every homework assignment. I reserve the right to fail any student who does not make a good faith effort to complete all of the homework assignments.

Late assignments will be marked down 20% per day late. No credit will be given for assignments that are more than three (3) days late unless prior approval has been granted for an extension by the instructor.

Programs will be graded based on the following criteria:

4: Superior. The program extends the basic requirements significantly by implementing additional graphical features covered in the text and other resources.

3-3.5: Good. The program goes beyond the basic requirements by embellishing the final output using techniques discussed in class.

2-2.5: Average. The program meets only the basic requirements of the assignment.

1: Below Average. The program produces mostly incorrect output or shows little attempt at a solution to the problem.

0: Failure. The program does not execute.

Final Project

The final project will demonstrate all the concepts learned throughout the course of the semester. There will be periodic milestones throughout the semester to encourage you to start early and make continuous progress as new material is covered. There will be a final demonstration of your project during the final exam period to highlight all the functionality present.

Posting and submission of assignments and labs

Assignments and labs will be posted as zip files on the course web page.

The written portion of assignments will be submitted as .pdf’s via Canvas. Programming portions for assignments will be submitted using the Marmoset server. You will receive an email containing the username and password you should use for this server.

Attendance and Participation

Students are expected to attend all scheduled classes and read the appropriate text material prior to class. If you must miss a class, it is your responsibility to notify the professor prior to class. Students are responsible for all material covered in class.

You may work ahead and submit any assignments early, but you must not fall behind. Class time is intended to be used for answering questions about the reading, labs, and assignments. You are responsible for keeping up with the reading assignments as described in the schedule.

Professionalism

I expect you to conduct yourself as a professional in this course. Professionalism includes:

Respect for and courteous interaction with peers, faculty and facilities;
Integrity, which includes at its core honesty, responsibility and accountability for one’s own actions;
Sensitivity and appreciation for diverse cultures, backgrounds, and life experiences;
Constructive evaluation, which means that criticism is offered and accepted in a productive manner;
Self-reflection and identification of one’s own strengths and weaknesses;
Responsibility for one’s own education and learning;
An attitude that fosters professional behavior in colleagues and peers;
Punctuality at meetings and class sessions;
Attentive behavior during class sessions, avoiding personal or social use of cell phones, laptops, or other electronic devices;
Acknowledgement of the Kinsley Engineering Center as a professional workplace, and treatment of this facility as a business or office space, not as an informal space.

I reserve the right to enforce this code through the York College Code of Student Conduct.

Academic Integrity Policy (Philosophy Statement)

For the full policy, go the the Academic Standards section of the current Course Catalog https://www.ycp.edu/about-us/offices-and-departments/registrar/catalogs/.

York College of Pennsylvania, as an institution of higher education, serves to promote and sustain the creation, acquisition, and dissemination of knowledge. In order to fulfill this purpose, an environment of integrity, dependability and honesty must be maintained by all members of the York College community. Without a foundation based on intellectual honesty and integrity, the very ability to uphold the academic endeavors that York College strives to pursue is inhibited.

Academic integrity involves two fundamental expectations:

Anything you turn in as your own work is, in fact, your own work and your own words, completed without assistance, unless your instructor has given explicit permission otherwise.
Anything you turn in is truthful. Lab data were generated in the lab (and not made up), hours worked for an internship or coop were actually worked, etc.

YCP’s academic integrity policy includes a non-exhaustive list of activities that are prohibited. Some of the commonly encountered prohibited activities include:

Plagiarism (passing someone else’s words or ideas off as one’s own without proper attribution).
Getting assistance from other students on non-collaborative assignments. You are permitted (and encouraged) to get assistance from your instructor and the Academic Success Center.
Sharing papers, exams, homework assignments, etc. with other students (even if it wasn’t your intent to cheat).
Ghostwriting (getting someone else to write a paper/assignment, whether it is a friend, an essay mill, or a generative AI tool).
Using unauthorized assistance on exams (e.g., cheat sheets, websites, publisher test banks, other students).
Buying/sourcing assignment answers from other people (whether it is other students, a website like Chegg, or other online sources).
Turning in papers/assignments completed in other classes.

This is not a complete list of prohibited activities. Check out the policy in the catalog for a more comprehensive list. The onus is on you, the student, to verify that any exceptions are allowed in this class by your instructor.

Instructors have full discretion to assign a sanction up to and including a grade of 0 in the class for violations of the policy. Violations will be reported to the Associate Provost of Student Success as outlined in the policy. You cannot withdraw from a class if you have been charged with an academic integrity violation.

If at any point you are unsure whether something is allowed under the academic integrity policy, please ask your instructor!

Instructor’s policy

The following policy pertains specifically to all graded work in this course:

All graded (individual) assignments are to be completed individually. I encourage you to discuss high level concepts with other students, but any work you submit must be yours alone.
Direct copying of solutions or work from other students, web sites, or other sources is absolutely forbidden under any circumstances.
Any sources (books, websites, articles, fellow students, etc.), except for the course textbook and lecture notes, that you consult in completing an assignment must be properly acknowledged. In general, I strongly discourage you from using any resource not explicitly listed in the course syllabus or on the course web page but rather asking the instructor for assistance.
Exams must be completed individually using only the resources from the course.

Lab assignments are not graded—therefore, you may work with other students on them. However, I do expect you to complete them. You are encouraged to utilize the class time to work on the labs and ask any questions about them.

Use of Personal Technology in the Classroom

While York College recognizes students’ need for educational and emergency-related technological devices such as laptops, PDA’s, cellular phones, etc., using them unethically or recreationally during class time is never appropriate. The college recognizes and supports faculty members’ authority to regulate in their classrooms student use of all electronic devices.

Communication Standards

York College recognizes the importance of effective communication in all disciplines and careers. Therefore, students are expected to competently analyze, synthesize, organize, and articulate course material in papers, examinations and presentations. In addition, students should know and use communication skills current to their field of study, recognize the need for revision as part of their writing process, and employ standard conventions of English usage in both writing and speaking. Students may be asked to further revise assignments that do not demonstrate effective use of these communication skills.

Student Accessibility Services

York College of Pennsylvania offers a variety of academic accommodations to students with documented disabilities to ensure their success. To request accommodations, please contact Student Accessibility Services at (717) 815-1717 or sas@ycp.edu. Student Accessibility Services will discuss the confidential process of requesting accessibility services and establish the accommodations for which the student is eligible.

There is a possibility that during this course, classroom lectures may be recorded in accordance with York College of Pennsylvania policies for Student Accessibility Services.

Disclaimer

This syllabus is subject to revision by the instructor.