Description:	Special effects; compositing; effects animation. Image manipulation and high-end production software.
Prerequisites:	Consent of instructor.
Required texts:	None.
Recommended texts and references:	Brinkmann, Ron, The Art and Science of Digital Compositing Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA, 1999 [ISBN: 0-12-133960-2] Hammel, Michael J., The Artists' Guide to the Gimp Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. (SSC), Seattle, WA, 1999 [ISBN: 1-57831-011-3]
Supplemental texts:	Gomes, Jonas and Velho, Luiz, Image Processing for Computer Graphics, Springer, New York, NY, 1997 [ISBN: 0-387-94854-6] Watt, Alan and Policarpo, Fabio, The Computer Image, Addison-Wesley, Harlow, England, 1998 [ISBN: 0-201-42298-0] Wolberg, George, Digital Image Warping, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 1990 [ISBN: 0-8186-8944-7]
Outside reading:	Current literature.
Professor:	Dr. Andrew Duchowski
Office:	Edwards 444, 656-7677, andrewd@cs.clemson.edu
Office hours:	Tue,Thu 2:00-3:00 and by appointment.
Objectives:	To gain an understanding of image-based operations used in special effects production, and to obtain experience with high-end production software.
Laboratory content:	Graphics workstations located in Martin Hall will be used for experimentation with high-end software as well as for implementing various image processing algorithms.
Evaluation: % Grade 90-100 A 80-89 B 70-79 C 60-69 D	Midterm 20% Lab Assignments 50% Final Project 20% Final Project Presentation 10%
Programming assignments:	Problem specification and due date will be given in class.
Assignment grading:	Source code and demonstrations will be required.
Assignment format:	Web page for assignment hand-in must include the following: Description of the problem. Solution images/vidoes. Gzipped tar archive of source code (if applicable).
Assignment late policy:	Late assignments generally will not be accepted.
Attendance:	Roll will be taken for the first one or two weeks while the class roll fluctuates. However, attendance is not required. Absence, excused or not, does not change the responsibility for assigned work. Tests missed due to excused absences will normally result in the test not being counted in the average grade (i.e., there will normally be no makeup tests). An unexcused absence from a test will normally result in a grade of zero for that test. Students are expected to give at least one week advance notice for excused absences.
Independent work:	Unless otherwise stated explicitly (e.g., in the case of the final project), each student must do his or her work independently.
Academic dishonesty:	The University policies on academic dishonesty apply. Publicly-available code or other material may be freely used if appropriately attributed. Each student is responsible for protecting his or her files from access by others. Work that is essentially the same and submitted without proper attribution is considered to be a violation of academic dishonesty policy by all those submitting the work, regardless of who actually did the work.
Class cancelation:	Students are expected to wait for 15 minutes after the class beginning time before leaving if the instructor is late.
Topical outline:	The course is designed along three major tracks leading to the final production of a short movie: (1) learning to use a still image manipulation software packages (The Gimp), (2) learning to design and implement image processing algorithms, and (3) learning to use a video editing/effects production software package (Maya Composer). The course starts on the first track by introducing an image manipulation software package. This ``canned'' software will be used for projects assigned throughout the course as well as for the production of the final project (e.g., title creations). The course will soon switch tracks to focus on the theory behind the operations provided by the software. Two main programming projects, supplemented by shorter assignments, are planned. Having grasped theoretical concepts, students will: (a) develop an intuitive understanding of canned operations, and (b) be able to create custom operations and scripts. Finally, the course will end by switching to the third track of the course, by going over the use of a professional video editing/ special effects software packge, culminating in the students' production of a final project video. Thus the course aims at providing an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at special effects production. Introduction The image Image channels and layers File formats Compression schemes Track 1: The Gimp Image Compositing Track 2: Image I/O Image Mapping Image Warping Image Morphing Convolution and Image Filtering Frequency Analysis Image and Video Compression Track 3: Video compositing Match moving HSV equalization Animation curve editing Sound effects synchronization Movie ``execution'' Proposed assignments: Image manipulation and compositing (The Gimp) Compositing (matte channel) Bluescreening Programming Image resizing, rotating (mapping) Image warping Image morphing (warping + blending) Programming Image convolution Discrete Wavelet Transform Compression simulation (wavelet decimation) Movie production (Maya Composer) Simple compositing Bluescreening / Chroma-keying / Matte creation & extraction HSV equalization Match moving Animation Animation curve editing