Computer Graphics and Visualization in a Computational Science - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Computer Graphics and Visualization in a Computational Science Program

Steve Cunningham

California State University Stanislaus

SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, September 2000

Computation is the third leg of the tripod that represents science education and practice

• Theory
• Laboratory
• Computation

Visual thinking and understanding: key tool to help the student develop his or her intuition and deeper understanding of science

Scientific visualization is where computation and visual thinking meet - it’s using computation to support the visual understanding

• f science

How do we introduce students to visual thinking and computation in science?

• User level approach

– Tutorial software – Generalized tools

• Programming level approach

– Focus on creating specific visual content

Value of programming approach

• Student creates the linkage between the

data (experimental or simulation) and the image

• Student has much larger set of possibilities

for controlling the visual communication in the image

– Color set – Animation – Geometry

This approach is embodied in a course in computer graphics as a core component of the student’s computational science background

Traditional wisdom says that this might not be worthwhile:

• Computer graphics is a difficult subject
• Computer graphics requires a student to to

master highly technical algorithms

• Computer graphics is just about making

realistic images

BUT...

• Computer graphics is not necessarily a

difficult subject

• Computer graphics courses need not

require a focus on technical algorithms

• Computer graphics courses can focus on

visual communication

Goal: create a computer graphics course that serves a broad student audience and is still a sound computer science course

Whom does the course serve?

• Shift the emphasis from developing

graphics specialists to developing a broad group of students with graphics skills

• Students can come from the sciences or

from many other disciplines, depending on the focus of the institution

• Computational science is a natural!

What is the new course like?

• Focus is on graphics programming instead of

graphics theory, algorithms, and techniques

• Emphasizes visual thinking and communication
• Uses a standard programming API, such as

OpenGL, for its work

• Lectures discuss graphics concepts, while the

course projects allow the students to work in their individual specialty areas

What background is needed?

• Sound programming skills, and an ability

to see the geometry in their field

– Programming skills means roughly B or better in two programming courses – Seeing geometry requires simple spatial abilities that don’t come from coursework but may be picked up from the students’ work in their fields, especially science

Course projects

• Graphics topics, in order:

– Simple geometry and color – Lighting/shading, transformations, callbacks – Event-driven programming, user control, interface – Clipping, transparency, texture maps, splines, ... – Object selection and interaction with image

• Include problem statement as project source

and problem summary with project results

This course is not the traditional

Geometry Display

Rendering

But is rather

Geometry Display Data

Geometrizing Rendering

Information & Insight

Possible student projects

Who wins with this approach?

• Computer science wins because we serve
• ur colleagues and our universities better
• Science students win because they get a

good background in the computer graphics they will use for their professional work

• Computer science students win because

they get useful professional skills

Contact information:

• Email address is rsc@cs.csustan.edu or

cunningham@siggraph.org

• Draft notes and other materials are online at

http://www.cs.csustan.edu/~rsc/NSF/

This work is supported by National Science Foundation grant DUE-9950121. All opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations in this work are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.