The ECE department will be offering two graphics courses in the Fall 2011 semester. Both courses cover topics related to 3D animation; EE 4702-1, GPU Programming, focuses on GPU programming, including GPGPU techniques while EE 7000-1, 3D Graphics & Visual Computing, will cover higher-level topics such as geometric modeling and shape matching.
EE 4702-1, GPU Programming, will cover the theory and techniques needed for implementing physics-driven animation on modern GPUs. Topics will include conventional 3D graphics, GPU performance tuning, physical simulation techniques, and using the GPU as a physics accelerator. The course will target the Nvidia Tesla architecture through both the OpenGL/GLSL and CUDA APIs. Students' aesthetic and technical creativity will be challenged through a term project in which they are to implement a novel, efficient, and visually compelling simulation, perhaps using the course's balloon demo as a starting point. The course will be offered by David M. Koppelman
EE 7000-1, 3D Graphics and Visual Computing Will cover 3D graphics and geometric computation algorithms, techniques, and their applications in scientific and graphic modeling, simulation and animation; an advanced graduate course but basic/necessary graphics knowledge will be covered at the beginning; no graphics experience required, good math background and programming skills could easily follow it. The course will be offered by Xin “Shane” Li.