CPSC 411/611, Special Topics in Computer Science
Virtual Reality Systems
Instructor:Sabarish V. Babu, Ph.D.
306 McAdams Hall
Office Hour:3:45 – 4:30pm Monday and Wednesday or by appointment.
General Course Information: This is an introductory course to the theory, technology, software, design, application, and human factor issues in Virtual Environments. The course assumes a general technical background and some type of experience with computer graphics, user interface design, or computer vision. In the past students from many academic backgrounds (computer science, engineering, architecture, psychology, fine arts) have successfully taken this course. This course is heavily project oriented. You will create your own augmented and virtual environments. The topic can be of your choosing.If you are unsure if the course is appropriate to your skills you should talk with the instructor, Dr. Sab Babu ().
Textbook: 3D User Interfaces : Theory and Practice by BowmanKruiff, LaViola, and Poupvrev
Grading:
30%Virtual Reality Project
30%Augmented Reality Project
15% Mid-Term Exam
20% Final Exam
5%Undergraduate Students Only: Participation, Educated Discussion, Pre-Class Preparation
5% Graduate Students Only: Research Paper Presentation
Letter grades will be calculated on a 10-point scale: 90..100 = A, 80..89 = B, etc. The instructor reserves the right to expand the grading scale, if appropriate.
Participation: Attendance is mandatory, and students are required to participate in discussions. Students are required to participate in discussions even when they are not presenting a project. Student attendance + participation are a significant 5% of the grade.
Please be on time, if you are more than 5 minutes late then I will count as 1 tardy. 2 late shows result in an absence. 3unexcused absences results in loss of a letter grade.
Presentation: Graduate students will be required to present a 30 minute research presentation on a research paper in Virtual Reality/Virtual Humans. It is advisable to pick a date and time to do your research presentation, and not wait until the last minute to present a research paper. Presentation grade for graduate students is 5%.
Assignments: Students will be paired into groups of 2, preferably an undergrad and a graduate student. These groups will work on small projects towards building interactive virtual environments, augmented reality applications, or interactive virtual humans. Deliverables will consist of CDs with source code, project report (who did what, and the purpose of the project), and in-class demo to your classmates and instructor.
Makeup Exams: The final exam is the makeup exam. If you miss the mid-term exam for any reason, I will count your final exam grade as that grade. Final exam will be comprehensive and therefore more difficult than the mid-term. The final exam will be given during the time slot scheduled by Clemson University. The final exam will not be given at any other time.Don't plan to leave town before the final exam is given.
Website:
The website for this course is located at:
PowerPoint slides for most lectures will be available for download from the website. Links to papers on subjects we will be discussing in class will be listed on the website and/or embedded in the PowerPoint slides. Textbook reading assignments will be listed on the first page of each set of slides. You are responsible for learning all the materials including papers, book readings, and power point slides.
Academic Integrity:
Please see the following link on University policies regarding, class room expectations, and academic integrity violations:
Please make sure to give credit to all sources of information on your projects and presentations. This includes, code, power point slides, etc. All small group and large group projects will have to be original work. If you find and want to use any code that is not yours in your projects, then you will have to get permission from the instructor.
Classroom courtesy:I will not tolerate online chatting, facebook updates, conversing with your buddies about weekend plans, etc during class hours. In such cases, students will be asked to leave the classroom. Please raise your hand for questions and comments.
Cheating, plagiarism, and all other academic integrity violations will not be tolerated.
Course Topics will include the following:
- Introduction to Virtual Environments
- History of Virtual Environments
- 2D and 3D Transformations
- Visual Displays
- Head Mounted Displays
- Head Tracked Displays
- Tracking
- Spatial Cognition and Applied Perception in Virtual Reality
- Presence
- 3D Interaction – Navigation, Travel, Wayfinding, Search, Exploration
- Avatars/Virtual Humans/Embodied Conversational Agents
- 3D Input Devices for Virtual Reality Systems