The topic of the seminar is programmable shaders (vertex shaders and pixel shaders). A shader is a small program that runs on the GPU (graphics processing unit). Shaders are executed in parallel on a GPU. A vertex shader computes vertex transformations, e.g., the transformation of model coordinates into camera coordinates. A pixel shader handles the rasterization of objects and computes lighting effects for each fragment (pixel). Each participant will present one or more state-of-the-art techniques.

There are two options for each student:

• A student may focus on literature research and write a paper about shader techniques. In this case, several shader techniques should be discussed and the length of the written paper is 3x ECTS pages.
• The second option is that a student implements one shader and analyzes its behavior. The jMonkey-Engine (http://jmonkeyengine.com/) should be used for the programming parts. A video tutorial about shader programming with jMonkey and an introduction about shaders will be provided. The length of the written paper is 2x ECTS pages.
• All students will give a talk (30 minutes) and will present their work .

Topics to be discussed are:

• 15.4.2015, Cartoon looking rendering (M. Dukadinova)
• 22.4.2015, Spectral Rendering (L. La Salle)
• 29.4.2015, Pencil-sketch rendering (J. Nehmiz)
• 29.4.2015, Shader in professional 3D computer graphics software (A. Moch)

Introduction slides with links to learning materials

Grading: You will receive a grade based on the quality of your implementation, written text, talk, and the participation in the discussions.

Languages: English and German