CSCI 129 Computational Photography
Fall 2012, MWF 11:00 to 11:50, CIT 477 (Lubrano)
Instructor: James Hays
HTA: Sam Birch and GTA: Emanuel Zgraggen

Course Description
Course Catalog EntryComputational Photography describes the convergence of computer graphics, computer vision, and the Internet with photography. Its goal is to overcome the limitations of traditional photography using computational techniques to enhance the way we capture, manipulate, and interact with visual media. In this course we will study many interesting, recent image based algorithms and implement them to the degree that is possible. We will cover topics such as
- Cameras and image formation
- Human visual perception
- Image processing (filtering, pyramids)
- Image blending and compositing
- Image retargeting
- Texture synthesis and transfer
- Image completion / inpainting
- Super-resolution, deblurring, and denoising.
- Image based lighting and rendering
- High dynamic range
- Depth and defocus
- Flash / no flash photography
- Coded aperture photography
- Single / multi view reconstruction
- Photo quality assessment
- Non photorealistic rendering
- Modeling and synthesis using Internet data
- ... more interesting topics.
Prerequisites
This course requires programming experience as well as linear algebra, basic calculus, and basic probability. Previous knowledge of computer graphics or computer vision will be helpful. It is strongly recommended that students have taken one of the following courses (or equivalent courses at other institutions):- CSCI 1230, Introduction to Computer Graphics
- CSCI 1430, Introduction to Computer Vision
- ENGN 1610, Image Understanding
Equipment
Students are encouraged to capture their own photographic data for their projects. There's no need for anything fancy -- any digital camera with manual controls should work.Textbook
Readings will be assigned in the free, online textbook "Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications" by Richard Szeliski.Grading
Your final grade will be made up from- 65% 6 programming projects
- 15% final project
- 20% 2 written examinations
Graduate credit is available and each project will specifiy the minimum requirements to earn such credit.
Important Links:
Contact Info and Office Hours:
You can contact the professor or TA staff with any of the following:- Professor James: hays[at]cs.brown.edu
- TAs and Professor: cs129tas[at]cs.brown.edu
- James Hays (hays), Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:00pm
- HTA Sam Birch (sbirch), Sunday, 7:30-9:30pm, (CIT 227, Moonlab)
- GTA Emanuel Zgraggen (ez), Monday 5:00-7:00pm, (CIT 271, Fishbowl)
Tentative Syllabus
Class Date | Topic | Slides | Reading | Projects |
W, Sept 5 | Introduction to computational photography | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski chapter 1 | |
F, Sept 7 | Cameras and optics | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski chapter 2, especially 2.1.5 | Project 1 out |
M, Sept 10 | Capturing light, man vs machine | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski chapter 2 | |
W, Sept 12 | Sampling and reconstruction | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski chapter 2 | |
F, Sept 14 | Linear Filters | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 3.2 | |
M, Sept 17 | Frequency Domain | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 3.4 | Project 1 due Project 2 out |
W, Sept 19 | Blending and compositing | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 3.3 and 9.3.4 | |
F, Sept 21 | Project 2 and Morphology | .pptx, .pdf .ppt, .pdf |
Szeliski 3.3.2 | |
M, Sept 24 | Point Processing and Image Warping | .ppt, .pdf .ppt, .pdf |
Szeliski 3.1 and 3.6.1 | |
W, Sept 26 | Image Retargeting | .ppt, .pdf | ||
F, Sept 28 | Image Retargeting, continued | see above | Project 2 due Project 3 out |
|
M, Oct 1 | Video Textures | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 13.5 | |
W, Oct 3 | Texture synthesis and filling | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 10.5 | |
F, Oct 5 | Image analogies, Graph cut, Scene completion | .ppt, .pdf .ppt, .pdf |
Szeliski 9.3.2 | |
M, Oct 8 | No class | |||
W, Oct 10 | Exam review, Single image super-resolution | .pptx, .pdf | Project 3 due | |
F, Oct 12 | Exam 1 | Project 4 out | ||
M, Oct 15 | Invited Speaker: Connelly Barnes | |||
W, Oct 17 | Matting, Transparency, and Illumination | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 10.4 and 13.4 | |
F, Oct 19 | Recovering High Dynamic Range | .pptx, .pdf | Szeliski 10.2 | |
M, Oct 22 | Invited Speaker: John F. Hughes | |||
W, Oct 24 | Tone mapping | .pptx, .pdf | Szeliski 10.2 | Project 4 due |
F, Oct 26 | Stereo | .pptx, .pdf | Szeliski chapter 11 | Project 5 out |
M, Oct 29 | No class - Hurricane Sandy | |||
W, Oct 31 | Invited Speaker: Sylvain Paris. Fast Bilateral Filter | .ppt, .pdf | ||
F, Nov 2 | Project 5 and Stereo, continued | .pptx, .pdf .ppt, .pdf |
Szeliski chapter 11 | |
M, Nov 5 | Modeling light and lightfields | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 13.3 | |
W, Nov 7 | Image-based lighting | .ppt, .pdf | ||
F, Nov 9 | Homographies and mosaics | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 9.1 | |
M, Nov 12 | Automatic image correspondence | .pptx, .pdf | Szeliski 4.1 | Project 5 due Project 6 out |
W, Nov 14 | RANSAC and mosaic wrapup | .pptx, .pdf | Szeliski 6.1 and 9.1.6 | |
F, Nov 16 | Taking good photographs | |||
M, Nov 19 | Photo quality assessment | .pptx, .pdf | ||
W, Nov 21 | Project 6 and Final Project Discussion | |||
F, Nov 23 | No class, Thanksgiving break | |||
M, Nov 26 | Coded Aperture Photography | .ppt, .pdf | Levin et al., SIGGRAPH 2007 | Project 6 due Final Project |
W, Nov 28 | Visual Data and the Internet | .ppt, .pdf | Szeliski 14.5.1 and 14.4.4 | |
F, Nov 30 | Visual Data and the Internet II | .ppt, .pdf | ||
M, Dec 3 | Invited speaker: Pierre-Yves Laffont. Intrinsic Images | |||
W, Dec 5 | Exam 2 | |||
F, Dec 7 | Exam 2 recap, Final project discussion | |||
M, Dec 10 | No class, reading period | |||
W, Dec 12 | No class, reading period | |||
F, Dec 21, 2pm | Final Presentations during exam period |