Numerical Tecniques for Photorealistic Image Generation

This course helps the students to develop two abilities: (1) to develop numerical codes that approximate a model of some non-trivial physical phenomenon, and (2) to learn how to properly develop complex software codes, using a number of advanced professional tools to aid the development.
The first ability is declined into the development of a software for the calculation of solutions for the rendering equation. The software will generate more and more photorealistic images of three-dimensional objects, similar to what professional programs like Autodesk 3D Studio do.
The second ability will allow students to develop complex software codes, made by several parts interacting together and strenghtned by internal verification tests. To fulfill this purpose, students will learn how to use advanced tools and procedure that are used nowadays, like performance measurement (both in terms of memory occupation and time), version control systems, bug-tracking systems, unit and integration testing, Continuous Integration (CI) systems, etc.

At the end of this course, students will have achieved the following abilities:
1. They will be able to develop complex software codes that can approximate the behaviour of a non-trivial physical model;
2. They will know how to describe mathematically the shape of complex three-dimensional objects;
3. They will be able to use omogeneous transformations and quaternions to describe the placement and orientation of objects in space;
4. They will be able to collaborate with other people in the development of software using distributed version-control systems (in the course we will use git) and code review systems;
5. They will know how to use bug-tracking systems to control the quality of their own software;
6. They will be able to use web-platforms to handle and share their codes (in this course we will use GitHub);
7. They will be able to use tools for performance measurement (perf, valgrind, etc.).