Teaching

Organisation

Interactive multimedia, 3D graphics and visualization methods are becoming increasingly important in a wide range of application domains including but not limited to product marketing, entertainment, engineering as well as sciences. In this seminar, we study technologies, methods and use of graphics and visualization methods, comparing and analyzing their algorithms, system implementation and application in software products.

Good knowledge of programming, advanced algorithms and data structures is necessary. Knowledge of  fundamental principles in one or more areas of computer graphics, scientific visualization, image processing, computer vision, multimedia is required. Strong computer science and mathematical skills are beneficial.

The seminar is targeted to BSc students in advanced semesters or MSc students.

Current Theme

This semester's topics will revolve around the technology and use of 3D Game Engines, which are not only used for interactive PC, console or mobile games but also used in various other applications for the interactive display and analysis of 3D data. The proposed topics are listed below, please select two topics of preference to allow for flexible final task assignment.

Literature

An excellent starting point for finding seminal work and recent advances in research on graphics and visualization techniques are the ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE Visualization and EUROGRAPHICS conferences along with the corresponding journals ACM Transactions on Graphics, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics and Computer Graphics Forum. A good starting point for graphics article search is also the SIGGRAPH graphbib engine.

Additional literature will be provided based on selected topics and defined as necessary.

Each student is expected to find and investigate at least 8 relevant articles (or chapters) on its own.

Schedule

The seminar involves a short kick-off meeting, topic assignment phase, report outline review, final report deadline, review phase, presentation day(s), and final report delivery date. Actual dates will be given in the kick-off meeting and arranged during the semester.

Successful completion of the seminar will be based and take into account the written report, the presentation of the report, as well as participation in seminar discussions and reviewing of other participants' reports.

Written Report

The written report that includes a developement of your own technical analysis and summary is expected to be around 6 to 10 pages in the given predescribed (IEEE Transactions) format. A LaTeX template will be provided, but the students are free to edit in any application, following the correct format and layout. The report has eventually to be handed in as PDF.

Close attention must be paid to the proper report structure (of a research article); the appropriate use, style and placement of figures and tables; as well as the correct citation of other work.

Presentation

The seminar presentation includes a talk (20 to 30 min) followed by a moderated thematic discussion (10 min) on the selected topic. Attendance and active participation in the seminar presentations and discussions of others is also required. The presentation has to be handed in electronically as well.

Close attention must be paid to the structure of the presentation which shoud include a short introduction and motivation of the topic, a precise statement of the problem, a detailed description of the analyzed methods, a summary of results, and a personal conclusion and discussion of open issues.

We strongly recommend to rehearse your presentation beforehand and to review your presentation file (PowerPoint, Keynote, PDF slides etc.) with the seminar assistant.

(tentative list - subject to changes)

The following topic areas are available for this seminar. For each topic a major system or survey article and/or book chapter as well as a recent research article on the topic should be selected as a starting point.