Point Based Graphics
CMPUT 610

Course Information

General Information

Lecture Hours:	Friday from 14h00 to 17h00 Starting January 8^th
Lecture Room:	CSC 363
Lab Room:	AMMI Laboratory
Instructor:	Prof. Pierre Boulanger
Office:	Athabasca Hall 411
Phone:	780-709-1260
Email:	pierreb@cs.ualberta.ca
Course Text Book:	Point Based Graphics Book
Course Syllabus:	Syllabus-2009
Course Readings:	Readings Material
Extra Course Material:	Extras

Course Information

CMPUT610: Point Based Graphics

Point primitives have experienced a major "renaissance" in recent years, and considerable research has been devoted to efficient representation, modeling, processing, and rendering of point-sampled geometry. There are two main reasons for this new interest in points: First, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the polygonal complexity of computer graphics models. The overhead of managing, processing, and manipulating very large polygonal-mesh connectivity information has led many leading researchers to question the future utility of polygons as the fundamental graphics primitive. Second, modern 3D digital photography and 3D scanning systems acquire both the geometry and the appearance of complex, real-world objects. These techniques generate huge volumes of point samples, which constitute discrete building blocks of 3D object geometry and appearance, much as pixels are the digital elements for images. This course presents the latest research results in point-based computer graphics. After an overview of the key research issues, 3D scanning devices are discussed, and novel concepts for mathematical representation of point-sampled shapes are presented. The course describes methods for high-performance and high-quality rendering of point models, including advanced shading, anti-aliasing, and transparency. It also presents efficient data structures for hierarchical rendering on modern graphics processors and summarizes methods for geometric processing, filtering, and re-sampling of point models. Other topics include: a framework for shape modeling of point-sampled geometry, including Boolean operations and free-form deformations, and Pointshop3D, an open-source framework that facilitates design of new algorithms for point-based graphics.

Course Topics

3D Sensing Technologies

Photogrammetry
Laser range sensor
Time-of-flight sensor
Sensor systems
Data types

Point-Based Surface Representations

Introduction & basics
Delaunay sub-complex methods
Approximating or interpolating implicit functions
Projection-based methods

Algorithms for High Quality Point Rendering

Signal processing basics and antialiasing
Re-sampling filters for point rendering
Surface splatting: a splatting algorithm with antialiasing
GPU Splatting
Ray tracing point model
Large Model Rendering
Hardware acceleration

Efficient Data Structures

The QSplat bounding spheres hierarchy
Optimizing the memory layout for hardware accelerated rendering
Sequential point trees
Implementation and results

Processing, Sampling and Filtering of Point Models

Spectral processing of point sampled geometry
Decomposition and patching of point clouds
Local and global Fourier transforms
Advanced geometric filtering
Error and re-sampling

Efficient Simplification of Point Sampled-Geometry

Local surface analysis
Simplification methods
Hierarchical clustering, iterative simplification, particle simulation
Comparison and analysis

Pointshop3D: An Interactive System for Point-Based Surface Editing

System overview
Point cloud parameterization
Surface reconstruction
Editing operators (painting, texturing, filtering, sculpting)
Interactive demo

Physics Based Animation

Computational Fluid Dynamics
Deformable model
Mesh free and particle based finite elements

Course Requirements

30%	Homework	There will be three homework assignments
15%	Class Participation	Students must keep up with readings and actively participate at the weekly meeting
40%	Project	There will be an individual semester project, culminating in a final 8 pages report in IEEE format and a presentation at a day workshop. Progress and check points before the final due date will count toward the final grade.
15%	Presentation	Each student must present their project during a daylong workshop on point-based-graphics. Each presentation is 15 minutes with 5 minutes of questions.

Grading Policy

Your course grade is determined from the total points you receive from homework assignments, course project, presentations, and class participation.
Homework assignments are due at the beginning of class. You have two free late days to be used at any time in the course, except on presentations and projects. After that, no late assignments will be accepted.
You are responsible for all information given in class verbally and/or in writing. Any information about the course on the web may be replaced by the information given in class.
Cooperative efforts at understanding the material and the assignments of the course are encouraged. However, you are required to submit only work that you have completed individually (except for the team project). Submitting any work that is not the result of a student's own effort is considered cheating.