Article

Rethinking graphics and gaming courses because of fast ray tracing

Authors:

Solomon BoulosAuthors Info & Claims

SIGGRAPH '07: ACM SIGGRAPH 2007 educators program

Pages 15 - es

https://doi.org/10.1145/1282040.1282056

Published: 05 August 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Almost all current games are implemented using the graphics processing units (GPUs) found on almost every PC. These GPUs use the z-buffer algorithm to do visibility calculations. Ray tracing, an alternative to the z-buffer algorithm, delivers higher visual quality than the z-buffer algorithm but has historically been too slow for interactive use. However, ray tracing has benefitted from improvements in computer hardware, and many believe it will replace the z-buffer algorithm as the visibility engine in games. If that replacement happens, it will imply fundamental changes in both the API to and capabilities of 3D graphics engines. This paper discusses the implications for games and graphics oriented classes should this switch to ray tracing occur.

Supplementary Material

JPG File (edu003.jpg)

Download
12.29 KB

MP4 File (edu003.mp4)

Download
35.02 MB

References

[1]

Angel, E., Cunningham, S., Shirley, P., and Sung, K. 2006. Teaching computer graphics without raster-level algorithms. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 266--267.

Digital Library

[2]

Bishop, G., Funchs, H., McMillan, L., and Zagier, E. J. S. 1994. Frameless rendering: Double buffering considered harmful. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 175--176.

Digital Library

[3]

Bittner, J., Wimmer, M., Piringer, H., and Purgathofer, W. 2004. Coherent hierarchical culling: Hardware occlusion queries made useful. Computer Graphics Forum 23, 3, 615--624.

[4]

Boulos, S., Edwards, D., Lacewell, J. D., Kniss, J., Kautz, J., Shirley, P., and Wald, I. 2006. Packet-based whitted and distribution ray tracing. Tech. Rep. UUCS-06-013, School of Computing, University of Utah.

[5]

Catmull, E. 1974. A Subdivision Algorithm for Computer Display of Curved Surfaces. PhD thesis, University of Utah.

Digital Library

[6]

Cleary, J., Wyvill, B., Birtwistle, G., and Vatti, R. 1983. A Parallel Ray Tracing Computer. In Proceedings of the Association of Simula Users Conference, 77--80.

[7]

Coleman, R., Krembs, M., Labouseur, A., and Weir, J. 2005. Game design & programming concentration within the computer science curriculum. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 545--550.

Digital Library

[8]

Cook, R. L., Porter, T., and Carpenter, L. 1984. Distributed ray tracing. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 165--174.

Digital Library

[9]

Cunningham, S., Brown, J. R., Burton, R. P., and Ohlson, M. 1988. Varieties of computer graphics courses in computer science. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 313--313.

Digital Library

[10]

Da Silva, F. S. C., 2006. Artificial intelligence for computer games. University of Sao Paulo (USP/SP), Microsoft Academic Alliance Repository Newsgroup, Object ID: 6210, http://www.msdnaacr.net/curriculum/pfv.aspx?ID=6210.

[11]

Da Silva, F. S. C., 2006. Software enginnering for computer games. University of Sao Paulo (USP/SP), Microsoft Academic Alliance Repository Newsgroup, Object ID: 6211, http://www.msdnaacr.net/curriculum/pfv.aspx?ID=6211.

[12]

DXFraMEWork, 2006. Dxframework: A pedagogical computer game engine library. University of Michigan, http://dxframework.org/.

[13]

Grissom, S., Kubitz, B., Bresenham, J., Owen, G. S., and Schweitzer, D. 1995. Approaches to teaching computer graphics (abstract). In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 382--383.

Digital Library

[14]

Hitchner, L., Cunningham, S., Grissom, S., and Wolfe, R. 1999. Computer graphics: the introductory course grows up. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 341--342.

Digital Library

[15]

Jones, R. M. 2000. Design and implementation of computer games: a capstone course for undergraduate computer science education. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 260F--264.

Digital Library

[16]

Luebke, D., Watson, B., Cohen, J. D., Reddy, M., and Varshney, A. 2002. Level of Detail for 3D Graphics. Elsevier Science Inc., New York.

Digital Library

[17]

Martin, W., Cohen, E., Fish, R., and Shirley, P. S. 2000. Practical ray tracing of trimmed nurbs surfaces. Journal of Graphics Tools 5, 1, 27--52.

Digital Library

[18]

Maxim, B., 2006. Game design and implementation 1 and 2. Microsoft Academic Alliance Repository Newsgroup, Object ID: 6227, http://www.msdnaacr.net/curriculum/pfv.aspx?ID=6227.

[19]

Muppet, 2006. Multi-user programming pedagogy for enhancing traditional study. Rochester Institute of Technology, http://muppets.rit.edu/muppetsweb/people/index.php.

[20]

Parberry, I., Roden, T., and Kazemzadeh, M. B. 2005. Experience with an industry-driven capstone course on game programming: extended abstract. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 91--95.

Digital Library

[21]

Parberry, I., Kazemzadeh, M. B., and Roden, T. 2006. The art and science of game programming. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 510--514.

Digital Library

[22]

Parberry, I., 2006. Sage: A simple academic game engine. University of North Texas, http://larc.csci.unt.edu/sage/.

[23]

Parker, S., Martin, W., Sloan, P.-P. J., Shirley, P., Smits, B., and Hansen, C. 1999. Interactive ray tracing. In Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 119--126.

Digital Library

[24]

Purcell, T. J., Buck, I., Mark, W. R., and Hanrahan, P. 2002. Ray tracing on programmable graphics hardware. ACM Transactions on Graphics 21, 3, 703--712.

Digital Library

[25]

2004. International technology roadmap for semiconductors. www.itrs.net/Common/2004Update/2004Update.htm.

[26]

Stamminger, M., and Drettakis, G. 2002. Perspective shadow maps. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 557--562.

Digital Library

[27]

Sung, K., Shirley, P., and Reed-Rosenberg, R. 2007. Experiencing aspects of games programming in an introductory computer graphics class. In Proceedings of SIGCSE. to appear.

Digital Library

[28]

Sweedyk, E., Delaet, M., Slattery, M. C., and Kuffner, J. 2005. Computer games and cs education: why and how. In Proceedings of SIGCSE, 256--257.

Digital Library

[29]

Upson, C., and Keeler, M. 1988. VBUFFER: Visible volume rendering. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 59--64.

Digital Library

[30]

Vegso, J. 2005. Interest in cs as major drops among incoming freshmen. Computing Research News 17, 3 (May).

[31]

Wand, M., Fischer, M., Peter, I., auf der Heide, F. M., and Strasser, W. 2001. The randomized z-buffer algorithm: interactive rendering of highly complex scenes. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 361--370.

Digital Library

[32]

Whitted, T. 1980. An improved illumination model for shaded display. Communications of the ACM 23, 6 (June), 343--349.

Digital Library

[33]

Woolley, C., Luebke, D., Watson, B., and Dayal, A. 2003. Interruptible rendering. In ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 143--151.

Digital Library

[34]

Woop, S., Brunvand, E., and Slusallek, P. Estimating performance of a ray-tracing ASIC design. In Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Interactive Ray Tracing, 7--14.

[35]

Yman, C. 2005. An approximate image-space approach for interactive refraction. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH.

Digital Library

Cited By

Shesh A(2013)Toward a Singleton Undergraduate Computer Graphics Course in Small and Medium-sized CollegesACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/252268913:4(1-21)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2522689
Hu H(2010)Teaching introductory computer graphics via ray tracingJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/1858583.185858826:2(30-38)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1858583.1858588
Spjut JKensler AKopta DBrunvand E(2009)TRaXIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2009.202898128:12(1802-1815)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TCAD.2009.2028981
Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Distributed ray tracing

Ray tracing is one of the most elegant techniques in computer graphics. Many phenomena that are difficult or impossible with other techniques are simple with ray tracing, including shadows, reflections, and refracted light. Ray directions, however, ...
Ray tracing-based interactive diffuse indirect illumination

Despite great efforts in recent years to accelerate global illumination computation, the real-time ray tracing of fully dynamic scenes to support photorealistic indirect illumination effects has yet to be achieved in computer graphics. In this paper, we ...
A solid angle approach to ray tracing in computer graphics

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGGRAPH '07: ACM SIGGRAPH 2007 educators program

August 2007

136 pages

ISBN:9781450318303

DOI:10.1145/1282040

Conference Chair:
Janese Swanson
The Art Apprentice

Copyright © 2007 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGGRAPH: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 05 August 2007

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

SIGGRAPH07

Sponsor:

SIGGRAPH

SIGGRAPH07: Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference

August 5 - 9, 2007

California, San Diego

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,822 of 8,601 submissions, 21%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

4
Total Citations
View Citations
552
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)6
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 13 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Shesh A(2013)Toward a Singleton Undergraduate Computer Graphics Course in Small and Medium-sized CollegesACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/252268913:4(1-21)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2522689
Hu H(2010)Teaching introductory computer graphics via ray tracingJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/1858583.185858826:2(30-38)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1858583.1858588
Spjut JKensler AKopta DBrunvand E(2009)TRaXIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2009.202898128:12(1802-1815)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TCAD.2009.2028981
Spjut JBoulos SKopta DBrunvand EKellis S(2008)TRaXProceedings of the 2008 Symposium on Application Specific Processors10.1109/SASP.2008.4570794(108-114)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SASP.2008.4570794

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents