GPH 321: Computer Graphics Development I

This course presents the fundamental mathematical foundations of graphics including an introduction to the basic geometric constructions of points, vectors, transformations, matrices and homogeneous coordinates. The course will explore applications of these mathematical techniques to rendering 3D scenes and lighting and shading surfaces in 3D. Advanced topics will include several key techniques from computational geometry such as the computation of object intersections and applications to rendering 3D scenes and object collisions. The focus of this course is on building the software from scratch rather than using a graphics application programming interface (API) so that students will gain a deeper understanding of the techniques they will be using in later courses through an API such as OpenGL or Direct3D.