EG 2018 - Education Papers

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https://diglib7.eg.org/handle/10.2312/2632159

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Teaching Image-Processing Programming for Mobile Devices: A Software Development Perspective
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Trapp, Matthias; Pasewaldt, Sebastian; Dürschmid, Tobias; Semmo, Amir; Döllner, Jürgen; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
In this paper we present a concept of a research course that teaches students in image processing as a building block of mobile applications. Our goal with this course is to teach theoretical foundations, practical skills in software development as well as scientific working principles to qualify graduates to start as fully-valued software developers or researchers. The course includes teaching and learning focused on the nature of small team research and development as encountered in the creative industries dealing with computer graphics, computer animation and game development. We discuss our curriculum design and issues in conducting undergraduate and graduate research that we have identified through four iterations of the course. Joint scientific demonstrations and publications of the students and their supervisors as well as quantitative and qualitative evaluation by students underline the success of the proposed concept. In particular, we observed that developing using a common software framework helps the students to jump start their course projects, while industry software processes such as branching coupled with a three-tier breakdown of project features helps them to structure and assess their progress.
GL-Socket: A CG Plugin-based Framework for Teaching and Assessment
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Andujar, Carlos; Chica, Antonio; Fairén, Marta; Vinacua, Alvar; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
In this paper we describe a plugin-based C++ framework for teaching OpenGL and GLSL in introductory Computer Graphics courses. The main strength of the framework architecture is that student assignments are mostly independent and thus can be completed, tested and evaluated in any order. When students complete a task, the plugin interface forces a clear separation of initialization, interaction and drawing code, which in turn facilitates code reusability. Plugin code can access scene, camera, and OpenGL window methods through a simple API. The plugin interface is flexible enough to allow students to complete tasks requiring shader development, object drawing, and multiple rendering passes. Students are provided with sample plugins with basic scene drawing and camera control features. One of the plugins that the students receive contains a shader development framework with self-assessment features. We describe the lessons learned after using the tool for four years in a Computer Graphics course involving more than one hundred Computer Science students per year.
Incorporating Visualization Research in Introductory Programming Course: Case Studies
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Kim, Sunghee; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
The importance of early research experience for undergraduate students has been stressed time and time again. This paper presents three case studies in which non-CS major students could gain a visualization research experience in their first programming course. In all case studies, students were given real climate data to visualize. In the first case study, students visualized spatial correlation between two variables (weather conditions) on a map so that viewers could infer areas in which the two variables were highly correlated in a positive or negative way, or areas with little to no correlation. In the second and third case studies, students generated single variable visualization and multidimensional visualization of two or four variables. In each of the three case studies the students were led through the process of understanding data, exploring different representations, and designing and implementing an agreed-upon visual representation. Increased number of students decided to take the next course in Computer Science compared to previous years without a research project. Feedback from the students suggests that they enjoyed using data they could understand and found the process and the final product rewarding and applicable to projects in their major and courses.
I3T: Using Interactive Computer Graphics to Teach Geometric Transformations
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Felkel, Petr; Magana, Alejandra J.; Folta, Michal; Sears, Alexa Gabrielle; Benes, Bedrich; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
Geometric transformations play an important role in a vast variety of disciplines. Although they belong to the fundamental concepts, they are also difficult to comprehend. Thousands of students take courses of algebra every year and although they may conceptually understand the transformations and mechanically solve the presented problems, they often struggle in visualizing the effect of the transformation on 3D objects represented as matrices. We explored the hypothesis that using interactive 3D computer graphics to visualize the transformations has its learning benefit.We have developed a novel framework for interactive 3D transformations called Interactive 3D Transformations (I3T) that allows for exploring and visualizing immediate effect of 3D transformations on rigid objects. We tested nine graduate students with I3T and compared them with the control group of another nine participants that used traditional passive methods. Moreover, we have tested the students spatial abilities by using a standardized test and we have evaluated how this affects their ability to comprehend the 3D transformations. Overall results showed that students increased their understanding of transformations between the pretest and posttest in both groups. When comparing the two groups, although the mean score in the posttest was two times higher for the I3T group, it did not show that this was statistically significantly higher than for the Traditional Group. The written responses showed higher enthusiasm of the students who used the interactive tool as opposed to using the passive learning method.
A Creative First Assignment in the Modern Graphics Pipeline
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Fourquet, Elodie; Pentecost, Lillian; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
This paper describes a first assignment in an Introduction to Computer Graphics course taken by undergraduate students at a liberal arts college. The assignment marries the technical challenges found at the lowest level of the modern graphics pipeline with the artistic concerns of reproducing a piece of art. To do so, students extend provided code in WebGL, which includes GLSL shaders and no additional libraries, to reproduce a work of art of their own choosing. This task requires the students to involve themselves simultaneously in the most technical and most artistic aspects of computer graphics. Such an inter-disciplinary approach helps to reach a more diverse audience of computer graphics learners.
On the Pedagogy of Teaching Introductory Computer Graphics without Rendering APIs
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Chen, Minsi; Xu, Zhijie; Rippin, Wayne; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
Teaching modern computer graphics programming has become increasingly challenging due to the advancement in the granularity of application programming interfaces (APIs). In this paper, we put forward a discussion on the pedagogical value of implementing a software rasteriser prior to tackling the issues of learning modern graphics APIs and shader programming. An API-free approach to teaching introductory computer graphics along with its assessment strategy are presented. Our observation found that students were more effective and confident in learning and using modern rendering APIs when subsequently studying advanced real-time graphics.
Teaching Spatial Augmented Reality: a Practical Assignment for Large Audiences
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Ridel, Brett; Reuter, Patrick; Couture, Nadine; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
We present a new methodology to teach spatial augmented reality in a practical assignment to large audiences. Our approach does not require specific equipment such as video projectors while teaching the principal topics and difficulties involved in spatial augmented reality applications, and especially calibration and tracking. The key idea is to set up a scene graph consisting of a 3D scene with a simulated projector that "projects" content onto a virtual representation of the real-world object. For illustrating the calibration, we simplify the intrinsic parameters to using the field of view, both for the camera and the projector. For illustrating the tracking, instead of relying on specific hardware or software, we exploit the relative transformations in the scene graph. We implemented our teaching methodology in Unity3D and tested it within a three-hour assignment to 24 and 20 master-level students in two consecutive years. We show the positive feedback that we received and discuss our plans for further improvement.
EUROGRAPHICS 2018: Education Papers Frontmatter
(Eurographics Association, 2018) Post, Frits; Žára, Jirí; Post, Frits; Žára, Jirí
Turtle Fractals and Spirolaterals: Effective Assignments for Novice Graphics Programmers
(The Eurographics Association, 2018) Anderson, Eike Falk; Post, Frits and Žára, Jirí
This paper presents an effective assignment in the shape of a computer graphics application from an introductory computing course with a graphics programming flavour. The assignment involves basic 2D computer graphics used in combination with fundamental algorithmic elements to create a simple drawing application. Students are first asked to create a data structure and appropriate functions replicating the operations of a Turtle graphics system and then to use this turtle for drawing either fractals or spirolateral curves.

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