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TEACHING COMPUTER GRAPHICS WITH VIRTUAL GROUPS AND VIRTUAL
LABORATORIES
Mihai JALOBEANU
Facultatea of Informatics, “Vasile Goldi” Western University, Bvd.Revoluiei, Arad, Romania
jalobeanu@uvvg.ro
Abstract: How to adapt the computer graphics course questions to nowadays tools and challenges?
Our proposal is to use Web 2.0 tools, on-line graphic editors, digital photography, and virtual
environments.
Keywords: Computer graphics, Computer Science, Virtual group, Web tools, On-line editor, Digital
Photography
I. INTRODUCTION
As an old pioneer in Computer Graphics domain between 1970-1978, after the 2007
recognition of his contribution [1], the author, as a professor of computer science, begun since 2008, to
deliver an undergraduate computer graphics course at the Faculty of Informatics, UVVG. Formally as
an introductory course in this field, delivered in the last semester before graduation. It was like a big
challenge to reconsider the topics in a way to attract our students (generally rejecting math tools),
when they already studied courses in modelling and simulation, visual programming, Web
technologies, an artificial intelligence. The author has studied the literature devoted to this chapter of
higher education, taking a top-down approach, with a strong connection with Web instruments,
looking for the best solution to a distance, web-delivery teaching. After the first more experimental
semester (March-June, 2008), the author's approach focused mainly to digital photography, to the
study of the digital photo devices as special and complex computer systems, and Web 2.0 tools for
image transform and publication.
The present paper resume the teaching ideas, experiences and result of such a computer
graphics course preparation and delivery. Following the idea that DE courses must be Web-based, and
taking into account author' previous experience from other courses, the proposed solution is based on
using a dedicated group (i.e. a well organized virtual group). The group being proper to cover the
continuous communication between students and teaching staff, without the usual divide. The
computer-graphics-group include all curse presentation files, i.e. the course prerequisites, course
topics, main references, suggested subjects and supplementary papers for projects, evaluation rules,
auto-evaluation questions, and a lot of course notes and texts. This virtual group assures also the
space for student' projects upload, as well as needed examples for image transformations, different
graphics tools presentations and guides, and so on.
At corresponding seminars, instead of using the local installed graphic applications (like
Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, Corel Paint, Inkscape, Xara, Krita), already discussed, with all inevitable
installing difficulties and main differences between computer operating systems (MS Windows,
Linux, or other platforms), a solution based on Internet connection and the use of one of numerous
graphics and image virtual laboratories, especially Picnik, Photoshop, Phixr, Splashup, was adopted.
II. DIFERENT APPROACHES OF THE COMPUTER GRAPHICS COURSES IN
COMPUTER SCIENCE IN THE WORLD UNIVERSITIES
2.1 How to teach a Computer Graphics course?
Since the beginning, from '80, when first courses have been delivered in this domain of using
computers for graphics and image processing, the topic of such a course became quite a controversial
subject. Partially due to the major interest for computer graphics from outside of computer sciences, a
lot of different approaches of computer graphics courses have been reported and discussed, especially
into the ACM Special Interest Groups for Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), and the ACM
Special Interest Group for Graphics (SIGGRAPH) [2, 3, 4, 5, 7].
Generally, Computer graphics deals with all aspects of creating images with a computer ,
namely with specific Hardware , Software, and Applications . And Computer graphics courses are
more or less connected with the rapid market evolution for all this specific parts. This evolution, with
successive analysis of corresponding educational questions of CG teaching are coordinated especially
by professor Steve Cunningham, through SIGCSE and SIGGRAPH dedicated events.
Eric Paquette, a Montreal based professor, into a 2005 paper[11] studies how Computer
Graphics is taught, analyzing more than 70 Computer Science curricula, from universities known for
their leadership in this domain, as well as mainstream universities. Analyzing also the difference
between introductory and advanced Computer Graphics courses. Through this analysis, professor
Paquette suggests that, “given the different types of universities and curricula, there should be more
alternative courses tailored to the needs of particular curricula. Developing such courses can be
difficult and time consuming, so a methodology is proposed to describe a course with information
useful for others who could be selecting it or who could be putting it in practice”[11]. Putting in
practice his methodology, he proposes an interesting unconventional course on bi-dimensional
Computer Graphics (and Image Processing) as an alternative to the traditional 3D Computer Graphics
course.
Consequently, the Computer Graphics course presented in this paper could be considered,
from the content point of view, as another application of Eric Paquette methodology and example,
even his paper has been read by author very recently, just in time of present paper preparation.
2.2 Another great examples
It is necessary to point out that at different top universities, there are different offers, even for
introductory courses in computer graphics. Particularly, at Stanford University, the Stanford Computer
Graphics Laboratory offer (for the academic year 2009-2010) 13 distinct courses (with at least 3
introductory ones), including:
• CS 205A - Mathematical Methods for Computer Vision, Robotics, and Graphics
• CS 148 - Introductory Computer Graphics
• CS 348A - Computer Graphics: Geometric Modeling
• CS 448B - Data Visualization
• CS 448F - Image Processing for Photography and Vision
• CS 248 - Interactive Computer Graphics
• CS 223B - Introduction to Computer Vision
• CS 448A - Computational Photography
• CS 178 - Digital Photography
• CS 164 - Computing with Physical Objects: Algorithms for Shape and Motion
• CS 348B - Computer Graphics: Image Synthesis Techniques
Details available at http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/courses/ (consulted March, 2010)
2.3 An attempt of Computer Graphics course classification
The main approaches for an introductory course in Computer graphics, from different
Computer Science faculties over the world, could be grouped in the following categories:
• The classical approach; it is based mainly on geometric representations into the paper, with
usual conventions for two, and three dimensional representations, projections on Cartesian,
polar, and spherical coordinates, with a lot of mathematical notions and formulas for
graphical transforms, with corresponding sampling and digitization conversion needed for
digital computers and their video or printing output devices. Examples like previous CS 148,
CS 205(A and B), courses following basic textbooks like , or courses yet delivered in
Romanian universities []
• The programming approach; following the algorithms and programming language
implementations of graphic representations, in some cases using C, C++ , or C# languages, as
well Java, Flash, or OpenGL environments.[9, 10, 13] – it is an approach which is well
justified as a Computer Graphics Programming course, by S. Cunningham in [3].
• The Computer Graphics and Image Processing (CGIP) user approach; more or less limited to
the use CGIP editors, mainly as courses of using Photoshop.
The engineering approach; insisting more on the hardware
• aspects, on the graphics station
architectures, video interfaces, and all input-output graphics and video device, with
corresponding commands and video accepted formats.
The Web design connected approach; considering the W• orld Wide Web facilities for picture
distance delivery of the course
s are vizualisation and interaction.
Due to
thesis, Frank Hanish [14] after an extended excellent review of the
e and more online courses in this field are announced, as, for example, a
and graphs publishing, discussing specific colour coding and accepted file formats, the role
and advantages of vector-graphics formats for zooming, insisting into the interactivity styles,
and to different Web 2.0 video and graphics facilities and applications, including the Web
programming aspects.
2.4 The question of
Since '80, computer graphics main principles and attraction
this characteristics it was used soon into different learning projects. Especially with earlier
promising of the World Wide Web, since 1994 the Web-based teaching and learning became the best
solution for distance education.
In a very interesting PhD
Desktop and the World Wide Web evolution, “as today’s representatives of hypermedia and graphical
user interfaces”, analyses their use for education. As “educational software today is Web-based
software, reflected, e.g., in SCORM’s (Sharable Content Object Reference Model, 2.3.4) assumption
of a Web-based infrastructure”[14], it seams natural to reconsider and rebuild as Web-based course all
computer science courses, and computer graphics especially. Even in his PhD thesis, in the last part,
with case studies (chapter 5) Hanish already discussed three different courses on Image Processing,
Image Communications, and Scientific Visualization, delivered by him since 1999 as interactive Web-
based courseware [14, 5.3]. In a 2005 paper coauthored with Reinhard Klein, and Wolfgang
Straßer,[9] Frank Hanisch constructively applies also his results to the structure and delivery style of a
Computer Graphics course.
In the last years mor
course entitled Digital photography: creating and sharing better images at Open University, UK, a
ten-week online course to develop the student' ability to create and share digital images.
http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/course/t189.htm (consulted March, 2010).
An online, or Web-based course needs an extended course presence into a Web server, with
general presentations, course notes, exercises, and referenced textbooks, usually with a public part,
and a controlled access for registered students. At least in this special case of Computer Graphics and
Image Processing courses, the interactivity part is very important. The usual course forum available on
the different virtual learning environments like Blackboard, or Moodle, do not assure enough
interactivity and proper space for image visualization, nor graphics editors. Consequently, for the
collaborative work, inside a course, there are some interesting examples using wikis infrastructure
like at https://graphics.stanford.edu/wikis/cs148-09-fall .
In a online course, usually there are pointers to the online versions of papers, included as
reference, and students are expected to download (and print eventually), and read these papers
themselves. Counting that pictures included into the online documents are not reproduced well when
copied. Some university assure for their students a free access to the ACM and IEEE Digital Libraries,
really great resources.
III. THE NEW COMPUTER GRAPHICS COURSE AT UVVG
3.1 The Computer Graphics in the faculty curricula
In the Faculty of Informatics (“Vasile Goldiş” Western University, Romania) curricula the
Computer Graphics is a required discipline, in the last semester before graduation (in the 3rd year of
study). It is a 6 credits 12 months course, with 26 teaching hours, 18 seminar hours, and 8 laboratory
hours.
Formally it is an introductory course, even the students already studied courses in visual
programming, modeling and simulation, Web technologies. Consequently the main objectives of the
course are:
• to provide overview of computer graphics and image processing.
• provide understanding of basic concepts, mathematical models, techniques, and algorithms
used in computer graphics and image processing,
• exercise theoretical knowledge application by graphics programming, and computational
photography, transforming and uploading photos into Web2.0 services.
There are very few books in Romanian language, so the resources [16 - 22] have been added step by
step. The last ones [19-22], describing new advanced graphics programming language called
Processing, for the graphics programming purposes, as a great substitution to C-based languages
programming, even OpenGL.
3.2 A new attempt
The author main idea for a modern interactive and online version of the computer graphics
course, started from the present situation: all students own at least a photo device, in the worst case a
mobile phone including photo camera, and they like to take pictures. Consequently, beginning the
course from the digital photography chapter, and analyzing the digital photo-device as a special and
powerful computing system.
Having concrete digital photographies as examples, all specific computer graphics notions and
tools like the image file structures, raster imaging, and color space coding could be naturally entered,
as well as digital image transformations, and vector graphics. All these topics have been threated
mainly using online graphics editors, as virtual laboratories for computer graphics. This way the
student' computing platform dependence, and a lot of difficulties in assurance of a proper equipped
laboratory are escaped. For graphical programming the Processing language [19, 20, 21, 22] is
preferred, as a very new, specially building tool, and a challenging attempt. The last part of the course
include some Web scientific data visualization questions, and other new graphic Web applications
[23].
As a course room, for online learning purpose, we use a dedicated Google group, as a proper
space for teaching and learning activities, with conversations, files, and Web pages distinct spaces and
management. It is a virtual space without distinctions between members, excepting the owner or
moderator obligations. The main difficulty of such a course management is connected with the huge
amount of messages; this can be a challenge the professor.
3.3 First year taught results
In the first year of the experiment, in 2008, the students response was quite acceptable. The
course was taught at the base faculty in the city of Arad, as well in North faculty section, in Satu-
Mare.
There were 67 students registered into the virtual group. 135 files uploaded, 539 messages in
100 subjects. 30 students had a remarkable participation, with more than 7 interventions (with a
maximum of 54), 24 students wrote occasionally (as 1-3 messages), while there were 13 complete
silent students. 28 students uploaded themselves between 1-9 project files, images, and solutions.
The course was highly evaluated by students.
It must underline that the group activity continued after student graduations, eight students ask
moderator for permission to remain group members for next year.
3.4 Second year taught results
In the second year, in 2009, with an accentuated top-down style of the course, using online
graphics editors from the beginning, implied the students attraction to digital photographies. An effort
to stimulate the students imagination and creativity, together with their curiosity regarding device
performances, and possible changes to final image. The class explanations alternate with group
discussions mobilize good students to the image universe discovery. Some difficulties of English text
understanding, also in comments of other' work. Finally, the students response was unexpectedly
high, mainly from Arad based students.
There were 322 messages in 127 subjects. 80 of the teacher, with 8 students counting between
9 and 19 messages each, and 11 silent students. 92 new files (44 uploaded by moderator, 48 by
students). At least 50 photo albums, 4 well done software tool guides.
As a main result it was a nice photo exhibition called The Digital Spring, with 48 20x30
photos. Also two student participated with papers into the student conference, and a well prepared
graduation paper was presented with the fractal graphics topic.
The students evaluated high the course.
IV. Conclusions
Teaching computer science to nowadays students, in Romania, is quite difficult due to their
very low curiosity and reduced reading acceptance. With such a Computer Graphics course it seams
that their participation and interest grow, with an improve of their creativity, as well. The use of the
Google group, with Google accounts, gives also a lot of advantages for students, like a PicasaWeb
access for albums, as well as an easy access to all Google services (google books, google maps,...).
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