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Session 1520

A Webware for Computer Graphics Education

Mustafa Sanver, Erik Gillespie, Li Yang

Abstract

This paper presents live and interactive webware for online learning of computer graphics concepts. A list of demos is provided. Each demo presents a concept in computer graphics by showing a 3D real world scene beside a 2D rendering scene with a list of graphics functions. Each demo allows users to interactively change the parameters and the order of execution of these graphics functions. Changing the parameters of the functions will produce the 2D rendering result from the 3D real world scene. The visual effects of user interaction will be reflected immediately in the 3D real world scene and the 2D rendering result. The webware was written by using the GL4Java library that provides native OpenGL binding for Java. Nate Robin’s well-known demos were implemented. These include translation, projection, light effect, texture mapping, and so on. New demos were also developed with pedagogical considerations in mind to emphasize the differences between model transformation and view transformation. Although the webware is designed for computer graphics learning the methodology is generic and can easily be applied to other disciplines or courses that require heavy visual presentation. This webware reflects our long-term efforts to develop web-based course material to show principles and techniques in computer science in an interactive way. We did this by having the related algorithms run live in the background and allowing students to interact with them in a web browser.

Introduction

Computer technology and the Internet are rapidly evolving and changing the way people do things in many disciplines including higher education in computer science. How computer education may benefit from technology is a main concern of this paper. Many methods are proposed for effective teaching and learning. This paper will discuss the convergence of technology and computer science education. We will focus on an introductory computer graphics course. Webware created for this purpose will be presented in detail.

The Internet and the World-Wide Web have many built-in advantages that make them ideal vehicles to convey knowledge to students. Among these advantages are their multimedia capabilities, support for user interaction, physical location independence, and ubiquity of access. Most importantly, the web presents an opportunity for hands-on experience.

An increasing number of enrollments in computer science and rapid changes in computer technology indicate the great demand for distance learning and online self-learning. Compared to traditional teacher-oriented classroom learning, technology-based learning has advantages. First, it is good for slow learners and classroom-talk-syndrome students. Second, it increases productivity of students by bringing multiple sources of information to the student through the

Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education

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Sanver, M., & Yang, L., & Gillispie, E. (2003, June), A Webware For Computer Graphics Education Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--11407