Foundations of Visual Computing

Course Overview

This course emphasizes hands-on experience in introducing the fundamentals of visualization software development using the Python programming language, with the turtle graphics module for 2D visualization, and the Python scripting interface to Maya. Emphasis will be placed on 2D concepts and techniques, while also providing some experience working in 3D. These principles provide the foundation for higher-level programming coursework and are the basis for highly sought-after skills within the animation, gaming, film, and related industries. This course is designed for undergraduate students with little to no prior experience in programming.

Course Objective

Upon completing the course, successful students will have:

Been introduced to the basic organization of a computer and how it is programmed to do useful tasks
Designed, programmed, debugged, and demonstrated foundation level computer programs in Python
Learned some of the algorithmic, perceptual and mathematical foundations of computer graphics
Experienced using a 2D graphics API to solve visually-based problems
Practiced developing and writing scripts in Python for the Maya 3D computer graphics platform

Course Requirements

The Visualization Program requires that all incoming students (Freshmen, Change of Majors, Transfer Students and Graduate Students) have a serviceable laptop computer and suggests the following minimum system configuration.

Course Schedule

Week	Topic	Lecture Slides	Lab and Programming Challenge	Quizzes
Week 1	Overview and Adminstrative Announcements Python and Editor Installation Introduction to Basic Python Programming	Slides	Lab 1 Installing and testing of Python and Maya	Quiz 1
Week 2	Turtle Graphics in Python Introduction to Colors	Slides	Challenge 1 Draw something exercise	Quiz 2
Week 3	List in Python List in Turtle Graphics	Slides	Lab 2 Maya: Introduction to Python scripting	Quiz 3
Week 4	Strings, List, and Inputs Conditionals and Booleans Loops in Python	Slides	Challenge 2 Sorting squares	Quiz 4
Week 5	Range, Division and Modulo Computer Organization Coordinate frames	Slides	Lab 3 Maya: Conditionals and loops in scripts	Quiz 5
Week 6	More on Loops and Demo Fibonacci, Sorting a List Tuples and Polygons	Slides	Challenge 3 Drawing polygonal shapes	Quiz 6
Week 7	Symmetry, Text, Images Points, Vectors, and Lines	Slides	Lab 4 Maya: Using lists in scripts	Quiz 7
Week 8	Parametric Lines (starburst) Trigonometry for graphics	Slides	Challenge 4 Parametric lines	Quiz 8
Week 9	Angles and Arc Length Trigonometric Func. and Pythagorean Identities Regular Polygon Turtle Demo	Slides	Lab 5 Maya: Scripting scale and translation	Quiz 9
Week 10	Transformation I Scale and translation Combine scale and translation	Slides	Challenge 5 Drawing regular polygons	Quiz 10
Week 11	Transformation II Rotation Affine Transformation Basics of Matrix	Slides	Lab 6 Maya: Scripting rotation	Quiz 11
Week 12	Function I Scalar parameters and return values Procedural Transform Demo	Slides	Challenge 6 Procedural transforms	Quiz 12
Week 13	Function II Variable Scope Lists, Tuples as parameters, and return value	Slides	Lab 7 Maya: Use of functions in scripts	Quiz 13
Week 14	File Handling Open, close, read, write Exception Handling Drawing Stored Model Demo	Slides	Challenge 7 Drawing a stored model	Quiz 14
Week 15	Statistical Visualization Review	Slides	Lab 8 Maya: Lights, cameras, and rendering	Quiz 15

Download Course Syllabus (PDF)

Demo Codes

Lecture codes will be posted here!

Resources

Book and Links

Textbook: Think Python, Allen B. Downey, O'Reilly Publishing: O'Reilly Link
A resource for all things Python: Python.org
A great set of tutorials with simple examples: W3 schools of python
Official Python Turtle documentation: Python Turtle
A resource for Maya: Autodesk Maya

Software

Python3
Autodesk Maya (Use TAMU student's license for free installation)
IDE: Visual Studio Code

Course Staff

Instructor: Suryansh Kumar (suryanshkumar@tamu.edu)

TA: Tiansu Chen (tiansuchen@tamu.edu)

TA: Xiaoming Wang (x_w21@tamu.edu)

TA: Dharani Kaliannan (dharani.kaliannan@tamu.edu)

Grader: GA1 (abc@tamu.edu)

Grader: GA2 (abc@tamu.edu)

Office Hours: TBA