CSCI 109 The Art and Science of Computer Graphics (Not offered 1998-99)

We watch as a dead planet comes to blazing-fiery life, we negotiate a perilous asteroid field to bring our starship home safely. Extraordinary events such as these, from motion pictures or from the local video arcade, are becoming commonplace experiences of modern life. What these events share in common is that they are both fruits of the rapidly-evolving technology of three-dimensional computer generated imagery. This course provides an opportunity to develop an understanding of the theoretical and practical concepts underlying Computer Graphics. The course will emphasize hands-on laboratory experience, with student work focused around completing a series of projects. From the first week, students will begin making color, shaded, perspective views of three dimensional models of their own devising. As the course progresses, concepts of both computer programming and graphics will be presented that will facilitate expansion of the range and complexity of the images. Lectures, augmented by guided viewings of state-of-the-art computer generated images and animations, will be used to deepen understanding of what has been learned in the laboratory. This course assumes no previous experience with computers beyond that required to operate a simple word processing program. Evaluation will be based on progress in the quality of project work. For the highly successful student, this course may serve as an alternate to Mathematics 211 as a prerequisite for the upper division Computer Graphics course, Computer Science 371. Lecture/lab three hours per week. No prerequisites. This course is not open to students who have successfully completed a Computer Science course numbered 134 or above.

BAILEY