Class Projects

The aim of the class projects is for each student/group to make some research contribution to the field of rendering (widely defined). Of course, things can go wrong, but you should at least have tried something with research potential, even if it doesn't work out. You won't be penalized if what seems like a reasonable initial hypothesis turns out to be false.

At the bottom of this page are a large number of suggested topics, very briefly described. You can select one of those topics, which I guarantee to know something about, or you can suggest your own, which I may then approve. You will have a hard time convincing me to allow something which doesn't involve a significant rendering angle.

I anticipate that you will work in pairs, but I will allow you to work alone if you really want to.

Part-way through the project, the Monday before Thanksgiving, you will be required to give a 20 minute in class presentation describing your progress so far. That may include the results of a literature search, some preliminary ideas, and/or some preliminary algorithm implementations. The primary aim is to force you to start early, and to identify potential problems early.

At the end of the semester, you will be required to give an in class presentation of your results. You will also be required to do a demo of some kind (assuming there is something to demo). Everybody should see everybody else's demo. Finally, you will be required to submit a short (4-6 page) paper describing what you did, why, and how well it worked.

The lofty goal is to produce papers to submit to SIGGRAPH in early January.

Time-line

• Fri Nov 5: Deadline for choosing a project
• Mon Nov 20: Progress reports presented in class
• Wed Dec 13: Project presentations in class
• Mon Dec 18: Papers and demo deadline

Grading

The project will be worth 70% of your final grade for the course. The grade will depend on four factors:

• The progress report
• The final project presentation
• The project as demonstrated
• The project as documented

Some Suggested Project Topics

• Metropolis Sampling for Extended Form Factors The Metropolis light transport algorithm has the disadvantage that it finely samples diffuse illumination. Its strength is in finding and sampling difficult paths. Apply Metropolis in a situation where its strengths are used to best advantage, while avoiding its weaknesses. One such application is in computing extended form factors (and also caustic photon maps).
• Benchmarking Terrain LOD Algorithms There are several algorithms available for rendering terrain in the form of height fields at various levels of detail. There are, however, no established benchmark terrains for those algorithms to be compared on. Implement the algorithms, design the benchmarks, and run the tests.
• Automatic Landscape Generation There are ways to generate terrain with particular random properties. But I am not aware of many ways to automatically populate the terrain (with trees, houses, roads, grass, etc), without significant user effort. Furthermore, for large terrains it may be possible to generate the landscape on demand, so that it need not be stored in full detail.
• Greater Coherence in NPR Animations As is frequently stated, coherence is a problem in NPR animations. Something better can surely be done, possibly by drawing on better probabilistic algorithms for placing strokes.
• Cartoon Physics Rendering Cartoonists stretch and squish a ball as it bounces. Generate such animation automatically. A sketch at SIGGRAPH this year suggested one possible approach.
• NPR Contrast Manipulation Real paints and canvasses have real limitations on the range of brightnesses and colors they can represent. Artists work around this by manipulating the light and shade in a composition in order to generate the perception of greater contrast or brightness than there really is present in the painting. Vermeer is an excellent example - he did it all the time. Furthermore, technical illustration manuals suggest enhancing the contrast across edges to highlight the boundary and accentuate depth. Try to develop a way to capture this effect.
• Tone Reproduction Scenes computed with physically based rendering algorithm have physically accurate luminance values that must be represented with an image. Monitors and papers don't have anywhere near the required dynamic range to reproduce the required luminance values, so some algorithm must be used to squash the range of brightnesses down to something that can be reproduced, while attempting to generate the same visual impact as the accurate brightness values. Such algorithms are tone reproduction algorithms, and there is plenty of space to develop better ones. This problem is strongly related to the one above.