[HN Gopher] Algebraic Geometry for Computer Graphics ___________________________________________________________________ Algebraic Geometry for Computer Graphics Author : bmer Score : 138 points Date : 2022-10-08 15:57 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (courses.cs.washington.edu) (TXT) w3m dump (courses.cs.washington.edu) | raghudotcc wrote: | Are there lecture recordings? | mkaic wrote: | This was also my immediate thought. Lecture slides are a | fantastic resource but seeing them presented would be even more | helpful, especially for someone like me who learns best through | video! | bmer wrote: | No, sadly, this is the best we have. | | However, Blinn writes that some of this material was presented | in more detail in some of his "Jim Blinn's corner" articles. | darzu wrote: | Maybe it should be required that public or publicly funded | universities have a set of relatively up-to-date lecture | recordings for each course. Since covid, I know for a fact most | UW CSE courses were/are being recorded and saved to Canvas CMS | for students who miss lecture/have covid/worry about covid/etc. | These should be made public! | | The hairiest issue here is when there's student participation. | But you don't need each quarter to be online, just once every | time there are significant course changes. The quarter that | will be uploaded could be announced as such and students could | consent to being recorded. But this isn't a big deal, MIT has a | lot of open courseware with students being recorded. It'd be | easy to survey and compare student experiences with/without | recordings. But the benefit for the public could be enormous! | Think about the public good of every publicly funded | university's courseware being accessible online for free. | tptacek wrote: | The majority of the funding in several flagship state | universities comes not from the state but from the operations | of the university itself: tuition, fees, stores, programs. We | the public literally did not pay for all these courses. And | the rate on a presentation, speech, or training course, | you'll find, is very different when it's delivered to a | specific audience versus being put on the Internet for free. | darzu wrote: | UW receives 37% of its funding from the state, the rest | comes from tuition[0]. In 2002, it was 70% from the state. | And of tuition, at least ~25% of that comes from public | sources (grants, subsides loans)[1]. | | And even if some public universities are self-sustaining | now, that doesn't lessen the fact that public money was the | major cause that started that flywheel. | | And regardless of funding, UW, like all public | universities, has an explicit directive to operate for the | "benefit of present and future citizens of the State of | Washington"[2][3]. | | As for course lecture quality, if it's worthwhile to the | students, it can be worthwhile for the public. | | [0] https://www.washington.edu/opb/uw-data/fast-facts/ [1] | https://educationdata.org/how-do-people-pay-for-college [2] | https://www.washington.edu/regents/ [3] | https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=28B.20.130 | timostrating wrote: | If you are looking for general advanced graphics video lectures | then this might help. The lectures at the university of Utrecht | (one of the top universities of the Netherlands) are now often | recorded and published sinds covid started. There advanced | graphics lecture recordings, slides and exercises from last | year are published on this website | chttp://www.cs.uu.nl/docs/vakken/magr/2021-2022/index.html | earleybird wrote: | Absent from his bio (and the wikipedia article) is his role in | the construction of the Vegreville Pysanka(egg)[0] | | "Robert McDermott and Jim Blinn are jointly responsible for the | precise mathematics and computer programming which implemented | the geometric concept Accomplishment of the highly sophisticated | and complex mathematics brought to a close the long-sought-after | geometric definition of the faceted Egg." [1] | | Came across this little tidbit of information reading the | information plaque when my dad was showing us around town. | Imagine my surprise coming across the name of probably my first | computer graphics books from university. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegreville_egg | | [1] http://www.ronresch.org/ronresch/the-egg/easter-egg- | booklet/... | adfm wrote: | Don't forget Ron Resch[^1]. If you haven't seen his Paper and | Stick film [^2], I highly recommend it. It's a fascinating look | into the early beginnings of computer graphics filmed between | 1960-1966. | | [^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Resch | | [^2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXENKmAUL0E | flakiness wrote: | Jim Blinn! | | Wondered what he is doing these days then... | | > "He is currently retired." - | https://www.jimblinn.com/biography/ | mindcrime wrote: | _Algebraic Geometry as studied by Mathematicians often deals with | very abstract and general issues that I admit that I don't | completely understand myself._ | | Nice to see this kind of honesty and/or modesty from an | instructor! | | Reminds me of the time I took Discrete Math at a local community | college. We all showed up at the room for the scheduled first | session, and found no instructor. We waited around about 20 | minutes, and were about to leave, when a grey-bearded gentleman | who looked to be of the instructorly persuasion rocked up and | started unlocking the door. So we follow him in, and he gets in | front of the class and says something approximately like: | | _" Hi, so-and-so, who was scheduled to teach this class, had to | back out at the last minute and so the school called me. I'll be | your instructor. I was a Physics major 60 years ago, and can do | this math, but I've never taught this before and don't really | remember anything about it. So we'll all be learning it together | as we go."_ | | It was an, _ahem_ , interesting experience, to say the least. | Luckily for me I'd had Discrete before and was only taking it due | to a technicality that kept my previous credit from transferring. | dhosek wrote: | Yeah, I was looking over the materials and thinking, where's | the Algebraic Geometry? I don't think that Algebraic Geometry | (as opposed to algebraic geometry in the sense that the author | here is using it) has any applications to computer graphics, | but definitely can be applied to other aspects of computer | science (I can imagine it being potentially useful in | cryptographic applications), although my own Algebraic Geometry | knowledge is more limited than I would like it to be. | kevinventullo wrote: | Projective space, syzygies, Bezier curves, cubic curves | aren't algebraic geometry? | kweingar wrote: | Algebraic geometry is also used in robotics | Sharlin wrote: | To be fair, it's _Jim Blinn_ , one of the pioneers of computer | graphics, so his admission could be read as a polite way of | saying that AG as studied by mathematicians is needlessly | abstract and lacking any real-world applications :) | SideQuark wrote: | AG as studied by mathematicians has produced an incredible | amount of applications that would not exist without that | level of abstract tooling. | | And it's highly nontrivial to learn those tools (as someone | that has worked through Hartshorne... And then put 20 years | into applications). | lupire wrote: | I don't think Jim Blinn would be so crass toward his | colleagues. | bmer wrote: | For those wondering (reasonably): are there videos? Short answer: | no. | | Long answer: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33133369#33134462 | ncmncm wrote: | I thought that algebraic geometry was really cool when I first | encountered it. But people with a lot of experience insist that | for computational processes it is slower than more familiar | methods. | | So it is convenient and intuitive for one-off transformations, | but not preferred in computational kernels. I see room for both, | and for quaternions, which I gather are also a bit slower. | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | Geometric algebra is not the same as algebraic geometry. | scentoni wrote: | I think you're confusing | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_geometry with | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_algebra which is a type | of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_algebra and a | generalization of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion | ncmncm wrote: | I am indeed. | godelski wrote: | These are just slides btw and unfortunately probably not helpful | without a lecture recording (which is not included). The slides | really look great, but I wish there was commentary along with | them. (they are not self contained) | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | I remember watching this Jim Blinn seminar on tensor diagrams | from the University of Utah: https://youtu.be/40TdlWURkS8 | | I understood maybe a third of what he's talking about, but it's | fascinating. | | He seems to be using similar slides to those on this page. | godelski wrote: | Thanks for the link!!! | bmer wrote: | This is awesome! Thank you! | bmer wrote: | Well, this is sadly the best we have in the field, where by | "field" I mean: "accessible algebraic geometry for graphics". | | Blinn provides some notes as to where his material comes from | (see the page). He also mentions that some of this material was | presented previously in some of his Jim Blinn's Corner | articles. In particular: | | * the "Lines in Space" series: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7047281 | | * the "How many different rational parametric cubic curves are | there?" series: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/jim- | blinns-corner/97815... | | Part of the reason why I posted this to HN is so that others | can hopefully drop some more information on this "field". | | See also the author's site: https://www.jimblinn.com/ | fanf2 wrote: | Amusingly, algebraic geometry is a very different beast than | geometric algebra. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_algebra | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_geometry | dxbydt wrote: | Just as computational statistics is a very different beast | from statistical computation. Got an A in one and C in the | other :( | godelski wrote: | That's quite unfortunate. I don't think the slides are | approachable alone. I'm sure they are great with a lecture. | Another user did link a 2017 lecture below though, which is | great. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-08 23:00 UTC)