1:: Prerequisites

A note to those of you who don't yet know C: highly motivated and capable students are allowed to take the course without knowing C++ or C. However, you must spend extra time at the beginning of the course teaching yourself C++. A Java to C++ transition document as well as a list of recommended C++ books are linked from the CS1566 home page.

While the TAs are willing to answer a few C/C++ language questions, TA hours are a valuable student resource that we have to devote to teaching graphics, not teaching languages. There will be no special provisions built into the curriculum for students learning C/C++. Programs will be due at the same time for everyone as well as graded on the same scale.

2:: Textbooks

• J.D.Foley, A.Van-Dam, S.K.Feiner and J.F.Hughes. 1996. Computer Graphics - Principles and Practice. Addison-Wesley.
• Woo, Manson et al. 2003. OpenGL Programming Guide (4th Edition). Addison-Wesley, 2003 (aka The Red Book -- an earlier edition is freely accessible online).

3:: Staff

4:: Course Grade

The course grade will be decided based on the following factors:

• Class participation (10%)
• Assignments (30%)
• Exams (30%)
• Final project (30%)

All assignments for the course must build and run on the department's machines (SENSQ 5505 if you prefer Windows, SENSQ 6110 if Mac OS X, elements.cs.pitt.edu if Linux). It is possible to work at home using OpenGL and GLUT under either platform listed above. However, this is not supported by the TA staff and the programs must still run as expected on the lab computers if you want them to be graded.

5:: Homework Assignments and Final Project

There will be about 4-5 assignments; some will be problem sets, and some will be programming projects. Your working source code should be handed in on-line by 11:59 PM on the due date, or the deadline announced; exact handin procedure will be in the assignment handout. If approached sensibly (i.e., working steadily), you will have sufficient time for each and every one assignment. Good time management will make this course much more enjoyable. The estimated workload is up to 10 hours per week, depending on your programming proficiency and mathematical maturity.

The final project is perhaps the most rewarding assignment in CS1566. Final projects are one person or two-person projects, to be proposed and completed within a 3-week period. The submitted work must be the student's (or the group's) own work. If working in a group, each member of the team will receive the same grade; the group is responsible for making a fair division of work between its members. It is important that you keep the final project in mind throughout the entire semester. Groups that form and research ideas for topics early will have more time to realize their goals (and an easier time, too) than a group that devises their topic on the night before the project proposal is due.

6:: Absences, Late and Extra Credit Policy

If an absence is unavoidable, you are responsible for making arrangements to ensure that your assignments are turned in on time. You are also responsible for obtaining the materials passed out and the information announced during the missed class. In case of extraordinary circumstances (hospitalization, family emergency) you should contact the course staff as soon as possible so that we may arrange an extension for an assignment or schedule a make-up exam prior to the due date.

Your TAs realize that sometimes you may have schedule conflicts -- an exam on the day your program is due, etc. Unfortunately, we can't give extensions for academic overload, but you do have the option of handing your program in late -- with a penalty. If you are forced to hand an assignment in after the due date, your grade will then be subject to a penalty, depending on the lateness of your handin. A percentage of the score you received will be deducted as follows:

The above are guidelines. Consult your assignment handouts and/or the CS 1566 web pages for specific deadlines for each assignment; they may be different for each assignment. And please be aware that these deadlines are strict: a handin that's ten minutes late is still late. Plan accordingly, especially when the lab is full and the server is heavily loaded.

You have three late days which you can use over the course of the semester to accommodate schedule crunches. Your late days will be optimally assigned by us at the end of the semester.

Sometimes you may think that you have been graded unfairly. Please take this up with the TA who graded your assignment. If there is still a problem, Dr. Marai is the final word in grading and will be happy to hear what you have to say. Also, once the grades have gone out, you will only be given two weeks to lodge a protest. In the past, students have tried to get points back on all of their assignments in the last week of classes, and though we would like to promote fair grading, we would like to dismiss malintentioned hassling. Our first priority is fairness (both to us and to you), so please do complain about grades if you don't agree with them.

There is ample room for bells, whistles, and other credit-garnering efforts on the part of ambitious programmers. You are invited to get creative, as long as it does not make you late. Rewarding bells and whistles with extra credit is left to the discretion of the TAs, so we strongly encourage you to discuss your creative plans with a TA before you forge ahead to make sure that they are considered appropriate for credit. Also, keep in mind that bells and whistles should only be done after the standard assignment is fully working since they won't count in lieu of missing or buggy features! CS1566 is a great vehicle for extra credit: if you finish a program a little early, seek appropriate inspiration and add something fancy.

7:: Getting Your Questions Answered

There are two ways of getting assignment-related questions answered and problems solved. You can talk to a TA during TA hours or send questions to the mailing list. You may not ask the TAs questions when they are not on hours or call the TAs at home. Also, you should not e-mail the TAs with questions specific to your implementation of the assignment -- those kind of questions should be brought to a TA on hours. However, if there are no TA hours which you can attend, let the graduate TA know about this and we will try our best to accommodate you. The mailing list will be set up in the first few weeks of class.

If you have a graphics question that won't be of interest to the class at large, you can mail the TAs about it directly. Please use good judgment when doing this and consider how urgent your problem is so that the TAs won't be swamped. If it's not that urgent, try the mailing list first. In general, the TAs will read their mail daily and will respond as soon as their schedule allows.

If you have administrative questions, or if you disagree with the TAs grading, discuss this first with the graduate TA. You can either show up for TA hours or email the graduate TA directly.

The staff office hour listing will be available from the CS1566 home page and TA hours will be held in SENSQ 5712. When TA hours are rescheduled or exceptions are made, these will be announced on the CS1566 web page or on the mailing list. Do not expect the TAs to bring up your code on screen and help you debug :-). This is left up to their discretion, and is not part of their job description.

Aside from the regular office hours, you may request additional appointments with the course staff; however, these appointments must be made at least a day in advance.

8:: Class Conduct and Collaboration Policy

Professional behavior is expected from everyone. Please mute your cell phone during class.  Phone rings are disruptive to lectures because they interrupt everyone's train of thought.  It is apparently a CS1566 tradition that cellphone-rings signal pop quizzes :-\.

Please read carefully the CS1566 Collaboration Policy. When we confront a student with a case of suspected violation, an answer of "I didn't know that this is wrong" will not be met with sympathy. Before any of your work is graded, you will be required to sign a copy of the collaboration policy.

9:: Students With Disabilities

If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and Disability Resources and Services, 216 William Pitt Union, (412) 648-7890/(412) 383-7355 (TTY), as early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course.

10:: Finally...

CS1566 is a continually evolving course which has been updated again this year. Most of the changes were made in response to comments from last year's students. As such we are bound to have our own `bugs' hiding in the corners. Please read everything we hand out very carefully. If there is something which you do not understand, or which is not stated very clearly, please let us know so we can fix it right away.

This applies to the material discussed in lecture as well. Give us constructive criticism on all aspects of the course. The more feedback there is, the better we can make this course for you as the semester progresses, and the better we can make it for the next Pitt computer graphics students!

We just went through a lot of heavy talk. Please take all of it seriously, but also remember that we're not trying to scare you: we are here to help you! We're just clearing preliminaries and establishing the ground rules. With that done, we hope you'll have as much fun as we did in our introductory graphics classes.