The University of California, Berkeley along with edX is starting a free online course “Foundations of Computer Graphics”. Berkeley is the oldest institution in the UC system and offers approximately 350 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines.

This course on the Foundations of Computer Graphics covers its concepts of a particular software package. You will be able to write complex interactive and offline 3D graphics programs at the end of the course in C++, OpenGL and GLSL. Students will make images of 3D scenes in real-time and with offline ray tracing.The course consists of four segments. Each segment includes an individual programming assignment:
-Overview and Basic Math (Homework 0: 10% of grade)
-Transformations (Homework 1: 20% of grade)
-OpenGL and Lighting (Homework 2: 35% of grade)
-Raytracing (Homework 3: 35% of grade)

Each of the four segments of the course will have 2-3 lectures. Each lecture includes videos of 10 to 20 minutes, brief exercises and homework assignments. The course assignments will focus on programming and the brief exercises to understand the material taught during the lecture.

For programming assignments, students will receive immediate auto grader feedback. Students can submit their assignments to the auto grader several times but only the last submission will be counted.Students will be encouraged to collaborate and discuss problems in the discussion forums also.

Duration of the course
The course will start from 7th October 2013 for the duration of 6 weeks and require about 12 hours per week to study.

Eligibility
-Solid C/C++ programming background (Java is ok too; you will pick up C++).
-Access to a relatively up-to-date computer (Windows, Mac OSX or Linux)
-Solid high school mathematics; a review of the relevant linear algebra is included in the first segment.

What computer system is needed for the course?
The course material involves C++/OpenGL/GLSL programming that is portable. Skeleton code will be provided for all major platforms i.e. Windows, Mac OSX, Linux. This is a modern course involving programmable shaders.

Certificate of Accomplishment
Students who will earn a total score of 50% or greater will be considered passed and may obtain a free honour code certificate from BerkeleyX. Please note that certificates will only be awarded to students who obtain the requisite score by turning in assignments by the established deadlines.

Course Instructor
Ravi Ramamoorthi will be the instructor for the course. He is a Professor at UC Berkeley. He has taught computer graphics more than 10 times at Stanford, Columbia and UC Berkeley and has been honoured with a number of awards for his research work. The instructors will monitor the discussion forums and try to respond to the most important questions; in many cases response from other students and peers will be adequate and faster.