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    Tackling Diverse Student Backgrounds and Goals while Teaching an Introductory Visual Computing Course at M.Sc. Level
    (The Eurographics Association, 2024) Silva, Samuel; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
    Visual Computing entails a set of competences that are core for those pursuing Digital Game Development and has become a much sought competence for professionals in a wide variety of fields. In the particular case presented here, the course serves a diverse audience from Multimedia and Design students without previous knowledge in the field and low programming competences, to students that have a previous BS.c in Game Development and have already covered the basic concepts in a previous course. Additionally, the course is also offered as an elective for Computer Science M.Sc. students. This diverse set of background competences and goals motivated designing an approach to the course where each student can build on previous knowledge and have a say on its personal learning path. This article shares the overall approach, presents and discusses the outcomes, and reflects on future evolutions.
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    Teaching Game Programming in an Upper-level Computing Course Through the Development of a C++ Framework and Middleware
    (The Eurographics Association, 2024) Hooper, Steffan; Wünsche, Burkhard C.; Denny, Paul; Luxton-Reilly, Andrew; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
    The game development industry has a programming skills shortage, with industry surveys often ranking game programming as the top skill-in-demand across small, mid-sized, and large triple-A (AAA) game studios. C++ programming skills are desired, however, educators can perceive C++ as too difficult to teach due to its size and complexity. We address the challenges of teaching C++ in an upper-level Game Programming course and demonstrate how learners are up-skilled in C++ game programming, providing insights and reflections on the course. We show how through careful educational-design choices, combined with scaffolding a C++ framework and contemporary middleware, it is possible to transition learners to C++ for game programming.
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    State of the Art on Diffusion Models for Visual Computing
    (The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2024) Po, Ryan; Yifan, Wang; Golyanik, Vladislav; Aberman, Kfir; Barron, Jon T.; Bermano, Amit; Chan, Eric; Dekel, Tali; Holynski, Aleksander; Kanazawa, Angjoo; Liu, C. Karen; Liu, Lingjie; Mildenhall, Ben; Nießner, Matthias; Ommer, Björn; Theobalt, Christian; Wonka, Peter; Wetzstein, Gordon; Aristidou, Andreas; Macdonnell, Rachel
    The field of visual computing is rapidly advancing due to the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which unlocks unprecedented capabilities for the generation, editing, and reconstruction of images, videos, and 3D scenes. In these domains, diffusion models are the generative AI architecture of choice. Within the last year alone, the literature on diffusion-based tools and applications has seen exponential growth and relevant papers are published across the computer graphics, computer vision, and AI communities with new works appearing daily on arXiv. This rapid growth of the field makes it difficult to keep up with all recent developments. The goal of this state-of-the-art report (STAR) is to introduce the basic mathematical concepts of diffusion models, implementation details and design choices of the popular Stable Diffusion model, as well as overview important aspects of these generative AI tools, including personalization, conditioning, inversion, among others. Moreover, we give a comprehensive overview of the rapidly growing literature on diffusion-based generation and editing, categorized by the type of generated medium, including 2D images, videos, 3D objects, locomotion, and 4D scenes. Finally, we discuss available datasets, metrics, open challenges, and social implications. This STAR provides an intuitive starting point to explore this exciting topic for researchers, artists, and practitioners alike.
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    Holistic Approach to Modular Open Educational Resources for Computer Graphics
    (The Eurographics Association, 2024) Diller, Florian; Püschel, Fabian; Stockemer, Julian; Böhm, Klaus; Wiebel, Alexander; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
    In this paper, we present a novel holistic approach to open education resources (OER) in computer graphics (CG). Holistic on the one hand refers to the diversity and the interlinked integration of the materials we included in the devised educational modules, on the other hand, it corresponds to the public availability of our work, which manifests in various aspects. Each of our three-part educational modules consists of slides, an experiential education web application (''exploratory''), and a quiz for knowledge assessment. These materials are closely interlinked, as they each teach the same topic from different perspectives and refer to each other. Yet, the resources can be used independently to add additional value to various teaching styles and programs. This modularity and the overall public availability were one of the primary goals of our project. Consequently, every resource is licensed under Creative Commons and developed using open standards or freely usable tools, so that teaching staff from universities and schools can modularly include, adapt, and build upon our resources. The OER aspect is not only reflected by licensing; the complete publishing, design, and development process was formed to serve the general public. Our work is based on an experiential learning approach and does not analyze the pedagogical methodology. Instead, in addition to presenting the devised learning materials, the present paper investigates to what extent the learning materials can support teaching and learning computer graphics. We took several measures to evaluate our approach: 1) teaching staff was interviewed regarding the usability and acceptance of the technologies we used; 2) a usability expert was consulted to assess our system; 3) the developed resources were integrated into existing lectures and the performance of students with and without the assistance of the interactive education applications was compared. The responses to our approach were exclusively positive
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    An Overview of Teaching a Virtual and Augmented Reality Course at Postgraduate Level for Ten Years
    (The Eurographics Association, 2024) Marques, Bernardo; Santos, Beatriz Sousa; Dias, Paulo; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
    In recent years, a multitude of affordable sensors, interaction devices, and displays have entered the market, facilitating the adoption of Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) in various areas of application. However, the development of such applications demands a solid grasp of the field and specific technical proficiency often missing from existing Computer Science and Engineering education programs. This work describes a post-graduate-level course being taught for the last ten years to several Master's Degree programs, aiming to introduce students to the fundamental principles, methods, and tools of VR/AR. The course's main objective is to equip students with the necessary knowledge to comprehend, create, implement, and assess applications using these technologies. This paper provides insights into the course structure, the key topics covered, assessment, as well as the devices, and infrastructure utilized. It also includes a brief overview of various sample practical projects, along the years. Among other reflections, we argue that teaching this course is challenging due to the fast evolution of the field making updating paramount. This maybe alleviated by motivating students to a research oriented approach, encouraging them to bring their own projects and challenges (e.g. related to their Master dissertations). Finally, future perspectives are outlined.
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    A no-API Approach to an Introductory Computer Graphics Course
    (The Eurographics Association, 2025) Geigel, Joe; Kuffner dos Anjos, Rafael; Rodriguez Echavarria, Karina
    Many introductory computer graphics courses rely on the use of an established, GPU-inspired API to assist students in completing their programming assignments. However, as GPUs become more advanced, so too do the APIs used to interface with them, and as such, the complexity of using these modern APIs can sometimes overshadow the learning of basic graphics concepts that assignments are meant to illustrate. In this paper, we present an introductory course in computer graphics that takes an alternate approach whereby students do not make use of any API, instead creating their own rasterization engine written from scratch using an OpenGL-like shader-based architecture. We present the syllabus, course structure, and assignments for the course and share our observations on student learning from sections offered over the past several years.
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    Immersive Virtual Reality for Developing Spatial Skills in Learning 3D Transformations in Computer Graphics
    (The Eurographics Association, 2025) Alobaid, Maha; Young, Gareth; Manzke, Michael; Kuffner dos Anjos, Rafael; Rodriguez Echavarria, Karina
    Learning computer graphics requires programming, problem-solving, mathematics, and spatial reasoning proficiency. One of the most challenging topics for students is understanding 3D transformations, a difficulty often attributed to insufficient spatial skills. Due to its immersive, interactive nature, virtual reality (VR) has been proposed as an effective tool for enhancing spatial reasoning. This study investigates how VR can support the learning of 3D transformations by developing an immersive virtual environment (IVE) designed to improve spatial visualization. The environment allows students to explore 3D objects within a coordinate system, interactively apply transformations, and visualize the relationship between transformation sequences and graphical API code. A mixed-methods study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this VR-based approach. Quantitative results indicate a significant improvement in spatial ability. Qualitative feedback revealed that students found the VR environment engaging and intuitive. The ability to manipulate objects dynamically and observe transformations from multiple perspectives contributed to deeper conceptual understanding. These findings suggest that VR-based learning environments can enhance spatial skills and comprehension of 3D transformations in computer graphics education. Future work will explore long-term skill retention, instructional scaffolding, and alternative assessment methods to optimize VR-based learning.
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    Tracing Brilliance: Analysing Student Performance in Ray Tracing and Problem-Solving Capabilities and Approaches
    (The Eurographics Association, 2025) Liu, Enyu; Wünsche, Burkhard C.; Luxton-Reilly, Andrew; Lange-Nawka, Dominik; Hooper, Steffan; Thompson, Samuel E. R.; Kuffner dos Anjos, Rafael; Rodriguez Echavarria, Karina
    Learning computer graphics is considered challenging due to the diverse skills required, including programming, mathematics, physics, problem solving skills, and spatial reasoning skills. Ray tracing is an important rendering technique in computer graphics but many students find the topic difficult. In this paper, we investigate problems students encounter when solving ray tracing questions by analyzing student answers to assessment questions for a third-year introductory Computer Graphics module. Our findings suggest that the difficulty of ray tracing questions is related to the challenge of integrating conceptual knowledge, programming skills, and mathematical concepts into problem-solving strategies. Our results provide insights how this effects students' problem solving capability, i.e., many students seem unable to make appropriate mental models of problem statements and hence give answers which violate fundamental properties of the problem statement. We also observed that many students solved problems through trial and error instead of identifying the cause of an error. We suggest that students might benefit from visualisation tools which help students making appropriate mental models.
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    Four years of sharing teaching practices within the French Computer Graphics community
    (The Eurographics Association, 2025) Roudet, Céline; Belhadj, Farès; Sauvage, Basile; Maria, Maxime; Gilet, Guillaume; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Kuffner dos Anjos, Rafael; Rodriguez Echavarria, Karina
    This paper describes and provides feedback on a Computer Graphics (CG) teaching initiative conducted by the French Association of CG (AFIG in French), as part of its annual national conference (called j.FIG). The AFIG, historically focused primarily on research and doctoral education, has been leading the French academic community in CG for 30 years. Since the beginning of 2021, it has launched a working group dedicated to CG teaching in the Bachelor's and Master's cycles. Its main action was to present panels during the j.FIG, to address issues related to CG teaching on a national scale. This is analyzed in detail in this paper. For each of the four organized panels so far, we present its main goals and the underlying discussions and repercussions, by comparing them with similar state-of-the-art initiatives. Possible actions and proposals to perpetuate the event are finally discussed. More broadly, our ambition is to obtain reactions and provoke necessarily enriching discussions, enabling everyone to escape a little from the teacher's solitude, alone in front of his class.
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    Rendering Success - An Evaluation of Cheat Sheets for a Third-year Computer Graphics and Image Processing Course
    (The Eurographics Association, 2025) Wünsche, Burkhard C.; Lange-Nawka, Dominik; Wang, Zixuan; Hooper, Steffan; Thompson, Samuel E. R.; Feng, Tony Haoran; Kuffner dos Anjos, Rafael; Rodriguez Echavarria, Karina
    Student-created cheat sheets, also called crib sheets, exam notes, or reference sheets, have been used to reduce exam anxiety, de-emphasise memorisation, and enable students to focus on high level learning. Previous work has identified properties of cheat sheets which correlate with exam performance and has shown conflicting results about the benefits of cheat sheets for different subjects. However, no such study has been conducted for more advanced courses requiring knowledge from different fields and different representations, such as a text, (API) code, formulas, and images. In this research we investigate which characteristics of student cheat sheets predict exam performance for a third-year Computer Graphics and Image Processing course. We analyse exam results with reference to the cheat sheets and questions of different levels of Bloom's taxonomy, and we discuss implications for students and instructors. We found that higher exam scores are correlated with a better coverage of course material and more formulas. Having many example questions with sample solutions and missing lecture topics was correlated with lower grades. We found a correlation between several of our metrics and performance in questions related to Bloom's ''Apply'' category. We suggest that students should be taught how to identify key lecture concepts, how to represent them (source code vs. formulas), and how to use them in exams.