Photorealistic graphics – labs (2022/2023)

Lab credit

For the lab credit you will need to work on a Term project – implementation of your own Ray-Tracer in C# language. A project template and some support classes will be provided, the rest will be on you.

You have to earn at least 50 points (upper limit is 80).

See current points in this shared table

More information will be available in the RT004 GIT repository

A. Term project

You will write your own ray tracer from scratch. Scalable and well-designed (temporary states could be slightly messy) code will be rewarded. Programming language is C# – .NET 7, usual developing environments will be Visual Studio 2022 for Windows and Visual Studio 2022 for Mac.

No GUI, command line interface only.

Information from the lecturer, project template, support classes... will be published via the RT004 GIT repository.

B. Documentation

See the RT004 GIT repository.

C. Project plan

Step01. GIT repository setup

Create your own GIT repository – GitLab and GitHub are two recommended platforms. Use the git fork command from the original RT004 repository for a comfortable way to integrate future updates.
Setup your own Visual Studio project – you can copy (fork) it from the RT004 repository. There is a .NET 6.0 variant of the solution for your convenience.
Write your initial documentation page using the Markdown syntax
Grant me the R/O permissions if your repository is private – GitLab link (pelikan), GitHub link (pepcape)

Step02. Command line program

The simple command-line project is already available.
Setup a simple command-line parameter and config-file parsing systems – any simple text based (or XML-based) format is possible.
Some simple logging/debug system could be useful but you can postpone it...

Step03. Raster image output

Your program should create an HDR raster image with the given resolution and write it to a disk file – PFM format (and eventually Radiance HDR format) will be available in the project template.
Implement any "non-trivial" image content (e.g. defined by a formula) – please test your command-line/config parameters, try to modify the image resolution and content
Recommended image viewers are Picturenaut for HDR, IrfanView for LDR, or GIMP for any format...
Checkpoint 1: I will check your repository (it must be readable for me) and try to compile and run your program. I’ll check your config system and result HDR images.

The rest of the plan is in brief form only, see RT004 repository for details

Step04. Camera (ray generator for ray-tracing)

Step05. At least two solids (Sphere, Plane, Cylinder...)

Step06. A simple local reflectance function (BRDF) and an associated material description

Step07. Light source (point or directional)

Step08 + Checkpoint 2. Ray-casting for rendering images w/o recursion

Step09. Object-oriented design (refactor your code if it is not OOP yet)

Step10. Shadows

Step11 + Checkpoint 3. Reflections and recursion (the 1st version of ray-tracing)

Step12. Scene hierarchy read from a disk file (scene description file format)

Step13. Refractions (transparent materials)

Step14 + Checkpoint 4. Anti-aliasing, mandatory checkpoint (better ray-tracing)

Optional topics - pick at least two of them

Approximately with increasing complexity and decreasing importance/relevance.

Topic01. More solids

Topic02. More BRDFs

Topic03. Textures

Topic04. Noise textures

Topic05. Tone-mapping

Topic06. Parallel implementation

Topic07. Sky-dome

Topic08. Acceleration for triangle soups

Topic09. CSG scene definition (set operations)

Topic10. Distributed ray tracing (soft shadows, soft reflections...)

Topic11. Scene animation, motion blur

Topic12. Spectral ray-tracer, dispersion of light

Topic13. Path-tracing

More to come...

Credit requirements

Students have to earn a total of at least 50 points, upper limit is 80 points (at least 16 points have to be from 3D graphics assignments).
Deadline for winter-term credit is 28. 2. 2023 !
Deadline for summer-term credit is 31. 6. 2023 !

Credit points will be added to examination result (max 100 points) and the final grade will be determined using the following Grading Table:

150+ points	A (výborně)
130 to 149 points	B (velmi dobře)
110 to 129 points	C (dobře)
less than 110 points	F (nevyhověl(a))

How to earn credit points

A. assignments running through the whole term (implemented in C#)

Assignments are given in the labs (practicals), one assignment will be given in each lab. Students will have at least two weeks to deliver a solution. Number of points awarded for a solution depends on the difficulty, solution quality, robustness, and elegance. Additional bonus points can be given, e.g. in case of a contest.

B. transfer from previous year

90% of last-year points could be transferred from the previous year (upon explicit student's request via email).

Contests

Some assignments have a well-defined quantitative criterion for solution comparison, based on which one can assemble a chart of best solutions. Such tasks will be marked as "CONTEST" and there will be a public chart displaying the best achieved results. In case the assignment is handed in by at least 10 students/teams, the three best solutions will obtain a premium of 10, 6, and 3 pts, respectively. (In case the solution was done in a team, all its members get the premium.) Only solutions submitted before the deadline are allowed to enter the contest!

Rules

Since grading of the assignments is very time consuming, your are kindly requested to follow several simple rules:

Mail messages have to be sent from an e-mail identity where your civil first name and surname can be easily determined.
(Use something like "Malcolm Reynolds" <captain.mal@gmail.com>.)
One message = one solution. If you want to ask an additional question or send a complaint, use a different email message!
Message subject has to contain the class code (NPGR003) and assignment ID number (a three-digit decimal number). Everything else is optional.
You absolutely must follow rules for source-file naming. There is a clear definition on each assignment's web page. Don't forget to write your name into a comment on the first line of the source file!
Do not send any unwanted extra files (there are exceptions but they are quite rare)
Never send huge mail attachments! If you want to send an image (demonstration of a good/bad case, input picture, etc.), use low resolution, or send an URL to, say, gyazo. Large files (e.g. videos) should be uploaded to a file sharing site (Dropbox, Google drive, OneDrive, etc.) and you will send the file URL in the email instead.
TEST functionality of your code. When grading, the code could be run in conditions slightly different from the obvious ones. If it fails, points go down. So make sure to produce robust code! Handle all (even weird) input conditions well.
Sometimes we will include special comments into source files to mark places where your code/changes should go. Please don't feel restricted by those comments. You can insert any variable/support class/data structure as long as it stays in the source file declared for consignment. Don't add more source files to the task project - they will be disregarded during the grading (and therefore you will not receive any points, because the program will probably not compile).

Submission of assignment solutions

Simply attach the requested source code to a mail message. Uncompressed, unecrypted, follow rules declared earlier (message subject, source file naming)!

Penalty for late submission

There is a penalty of 1 point for every day of delay after an assignment deadline.

Lab schedule

No English lab group is organized! If there are English speaking students willing to enroll the lecture, please contact me via email immediately!

Video-recordings of some labs (in Czech language) will be available on the Slides page. Individual consulting will be organized on demand. Send me an e-mail for a consultation.