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	Course Overview Python and Editor Installation Computer Organization Date: 25th Aug. and 27th Aug.	Slides	Lab 0 Installing and testing of Python and Maya	Quiz 1
Week 2	Introduction to Basic Python Programming Turtle Graphics in Python Date: 3rd Sept.	Slides	Challenge 1 Draw something exercise	Quiz 2
Week 3	List in Python List in Turtle Graphics Introduction to Colors Date: 8th Sept. and 10th Sept.	Slides	Lab 1 Maya: Introduction to Python scripting	Quiz 3
Week 4	Strings, List, and Inputs Conditionals and Booleans Loops in Python Date: 15th Sept. and 17th Sept.	Slides	Challenge 2 Sorting squares	Quiz 4
Week 5	Range, Division and Modulo Coordinate frames Date: 22nd Sept. and 24th Sept.	Slides	Lab 2 Maya: Conditionals and loops in scripts	Quiz 5
Week 6	More on Loops and Demo Fibonacci, Sorting a List Tuples and Polygons Date: 29th Sept. and 1st Oct.	Slides	Challenge 3 Drawing polygonal shapes	Quiz 6
Week 7	Symmetry, Text, Images Points, Vectors, and Lines Date: 6th Oct. and 8th Oct.	Slides	Lab 3 Maya: Using lists in scripts	Quiz 7
Week 8	Parametric Lines (starburst) Date: 15th Oct.	Slides	Challenge 4 Parametric lines	Quiz 8
Week 9	Trigonometry for graphics Angles and Arc Length Trigonometric Func. and Pythagorean Identities Regular Polygon Turtle Demo Date: 20th Oct. and 22nd Oct.	Slides	Lab 4 Maya: Scripting scale and translation	Quiz 9
Week 10	Transformation I Scale and translation Combine scale and translation Date: 27th Oct. and 29th Oct.	Slides	Challenge 5 Drawing regular polygons	Quiz 10
Week 11	Transformation II Rotation Affine Transformation Basics of Matrix Date: 3rd Nov. and 5th Nov.	Slides	Lab 5 Maya: Scripting rotation	Quiz 11
Week 12	Function I Scalar parameters and return values Procedural Transform Demo Date: 10th Nov. and 12th Nov.	Slides	Challenge 6 Procedural transforms	Quiz 12
Week 13	Function II Variable Scope Lists, Tuples as parameters, and return value Date: 17th Nov. and 19th Nov.	Slides	Lab 6 Maya: Use of functions in scripts	Quiz 13
Week 14	File Handling Open, close, read, write Exception Handling Drawing Stored Model Demo Date: 24th Nov. and 1st Dec.	Slides	Challenge 7 Drawing a stored model	Quiz 14
Week 15	Statistical Visualization Review Date: 3rd Dec. and 8th Dec.	Slides	Lab 7 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