CMSC 427 Computer Graphics1

Lecture 1: Course Introduction
Reading: Chapter 1 in Hearn and Baker.
Computer Graphics: Computer graphics is concerned with producing images and animations (or sequences of im-
ages) using a computer. This includes the hardware and software systems used to make these images. The
task of producing photo-realistic images is an extremely complex one, but this is a field that is in great demand
because of the nearly limitless variety of applications. The field of computer graphics has grown enormously
over the past 10–20 years, and many software systems have been developed for generating computer graphics
of various sorts. This can include systems for producing 3-dimensional models of the scene to be drawn, the
rendering software for drawing the images, and the associated user-interface software and hardware.
Our focus in this course will not be on how to use these systems to produce these images (you can take courses
in the art department for this), but rather in understanding how these systems are constructed, and the underlying
mathematics, physics, algorithms, and data structures needed in the construction of these systems.
The field of computer graphics dates back to the early 1960’s with Ivan Sutherland, one of the pioneers of
the field. This began with the development of the (by current standards) very simple software for performing
the necessary mathematical transformations to produce simple line-drawings of 2- and 3-dimensional scenes.
As time went on, and the capacity and speed of computer technology improved, successively greater degrees
of realism were achievable. Today it is possible to produce images that are practically indistinguishable from
photographic images (or at least that create a pretty convincing illusion of reality).