EG 2022 - Education Papers

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    Virtual Ray Tracer
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Verschoore de la Houssaije, Willard A.; Wezel, Chris S. van; Frey, Steffen; Kosinka, Jiri; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
    Ray tracing is one of the more complicated techniques commonly taught in (introductory) Computer Graphics courses. Visualizations can help with understanding complex ray paths and interactions, but currently there are no openly accessible applications that focus on education. We present Virtual Ray Tracer, an interactive application that allows students/users to view and explore the ray tracing process in real-time. The application shows a scene containing a camera casting rays which interact with objects in the scene. Users are able to modify and explore ray properties such as their animation speed, the number of rays as well as the material properties of the objects in the scene. The goal of the application is to help the users-students of Computer Graphics and the general public-to better understand the ray tracing process and its characteristics. To invite users to learn and explore, various explanations and scenes are provided by the application at different levels of complexity. A user study showed the effectiveness of Virtual Ray Tracer in supporting the understanding and teaching of ray tracing. Our educational tool is built with the cross-platform engine Unity, and we make it fully available to be extended and/or adjusted to fit the requirements of courses at other institutions or of educational tutorials.
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    EUROGRAPHICS 2022: Education Papers Frontmatter
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
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    The Road to Vulkan: Teaching Modern Low-Level APIs in Introductory Graphics Courses
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Unterguggenberger, Johannes; Kerbl, Bernhard; Wimmer, Michael; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
    For over two decades, the OpenGL API provided users with the means for implementing versatile, feature-rich, and portable real-time graphics applications. Consequently, it has been widely adopted by practitioners and educators alike and is deeply ingrained in many curricula that teach real-time graphics for higher education. Over the years, the architecture of graphics processing units (GPUs) incrementally diverged from OpenGL's conceptual design. The more recently introduced Vulkan API provides a more modern, fine-grained approach for interfacing with the GPU. Various properties of this API and overall trends suggest that Vulkan could soon replace OpenGL in many areas. Hence, it stands to reason that educators who have their students' best interests at heart should provide them with corresponding lecture material. However, Vulkan is notoriously verbose and rather challenging for first-time users, thus transitioning to this new API bears a considerable risk of failing to achieve expected teaching goals. In this paper, we document our experiences after teaching Vulkan in an introductory graphics course side-by-side with conventional OpenGL. A final survey enables us to draw conclusions about perceived workload, difficulty, and students' acceptance of either approach and identify suitable conditions and recommendations for teaching Vulkan to undergraduate students.
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    Evaluating Bloom's Taxonomy-based Learning Modules for Parallel Coordinates Literacy
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Peng, Ilena; Firat, Elif E.; Laramee, Robert S.; Joshi, Alark; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
    In this paper, we present the results of an intervention designed to introduce parallel coordinates to students. The intervention contains six new modules inspired by Bloom's taxonomy that featured a combination of videos, tests, and tasks. We studied the impact of our modules with a corrective feedback mechanism inspired by Mastery Learning. Based on analyzing the data of our students, we found that students in the Corrective Immediate Feedback (CIF) group performed better on average on all the modules as compared to the students in the No Feedback (NF) group. In the tasks where students were required to construct parallel coordinates plots, students in the Corrective Immediate Feedback group produced plots with appropriate use of color, labels, legends, etc. Overall, students in both groups grew more confident in their ability to recognize parallel coordinates plots and expressed high confidence in their ability to interpret, create, and use parallel coordinates plots for data exploration and presentation in the future.
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    Mesh Smoothing for Teaching GLSL Programming
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Ilinkin, Ivaylo; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
    This paper shares ideas for effective assignment that can be used to introduce a number of advanced GLSL concepts including shader storage buffer objects, transform feedback, and compute shaders. The assignment is based on published research on mesh smoothing which serves as a motivating factor and offers a sense of accomplishment.
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    RePiX VR - Learning environment for the Rendering Pipeline in Virtual Reality
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Heinemann, Birte; Görzen, Sergej; Schroeder, Ulrik; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
    Virtual reality can be used to support computer graphics teaching, e.g. by offering the chance to illustrate 3D processes that are difficult to convey. This paper describes the development and first evaluations of RePiX VR a virtual reality tool for computer graphics education, which focuses on the teaching of fundamental concepts of the rendering pipeline and offers researchers the opportunity to study learning in VR by integrating learning analytics. For this, the tool itself is presented and the evaluation, which uses quantitative methods and learning analytics to show the effectiveness of the tool. The first evaluations show that even learners without prior knowledge can use the VR tool and learn the first basics of computer graphics.
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    Digital Matte Painting - An Effective Undergraduate Assignment
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Redford, Adam; Anderson, Eike Falk; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
    This paper presents an effective digital matte painting assignment from a course delivered as part of an undergraduate degree programme in visual effects. The assignment involves the creation of a final 3D shot from an initial 2D image, using various 2D image manipulation tools and appropriate 2.5D image projection techniques.
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    Introduction to Computer Graphics: A Visual Interactive Approach
    (The Eurographics Association, 2022) Loscos, Celine; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Paquette, Eric
    Computer graphics is a difficult topic, requiring associating mathematics and programming skills. When initially taught at undergraduate levels, there are several factors which discourage students. First, programming a first computer graphics program requires a substantial initial framework which can be intimidating for many of them. Second, understanding and applying mathematical concepts is very often overwhelming. To counter this intimidating feeling, a new teaching approach was proposed in 2018 to 3rd year undergraduate computer science students. The course was split into two parts, theory and practice. The theoretical concepts were seen in class, with course handouts and table exercises resembling closely to traditional computer graphics learning. The originality of the course comes from a new way of practicing 3D programming. Practical labs were built upon the Unity game engine programming platform, adapted to match the theoretical concepts seen in classroom. Conclusions are drawn over 4 years of teaching this course. When taught using an accompanying easy-to-access graphics programming platform, computer graphics becomes a more attractive course for students with lower mathematics and programming skills. It is also very satisfactory for skillful students as it enables them to grab and master concepts quickly to reach interesting final lab achievements.