Stanford CS248A, Winter 2026

Computer Graphics:

Rendering, Geometry, and Image Manipulation

This course focuses on the fundamental concepts, scene representations, and techniques for tasks such as image generation (rendering), geometry processing, and 3D scene estimation. Topics include: image synthesis via ray tracing and rasterization, sampling and reconstruction, the GPU graphics pipeline, GPU programming, geometric transformations, 3D scene representations (both human engineered and "neural"), spatial acceleration structions, reflectance, global illumination, scene parameter recovery via optimization-based methods, and neural rendering.

Basic Info

Time: Tues/Thurs 1:30-2:50pm

Location: CoDa B80

Instructor: Kayvon Fatahalian

See the course info page for more info on policies and logistics.

Winter 2025 Schedule

Jan 06		Lines, Planes, and Triangles (Why Determining if a Representation is Good is Task Specific) Simple drawing of lines and triangles (in 2D or 3D), drawing via point sampling, point-in-triangle testing, how different representations are preferable for different tasks involving these primitives. How rasterization and ray tracing algorithms are two ways to perform the same task.
Jan 08		The Basics of Sampling Signals (1D, 2D, 3D, or even N-D) Point sampling, interpolation, aliasing/anti-aliasing, upsampling/downsampling, Fourier interpretation of aliasing, a bit on neural anti-aliasing
Jan 13		Coordinate Spaces and Transformations Definition of linear transforms, basic geometric transforms, homogeneous coordinates, transform hierarchies, perspective projection
Jan 15		A Diverse Set of Ways to Represent Geometry Properties of surfaces (manifold, normal, curvature), implicit vs. explicit representations, representations such as triangle meshes, voxel grids, signed-distance fields, 3D Gaussian splats, neural representations like NeuralSDFs, converting between representations
Jan 20		Accelerating Geometric Queries How acceleration structures such as bounding volume hierarchies (BVHs), K-D trees, uniform grids, and sparse grids accelerate operations like ray tracing on complex scenes, two-level acceleration structures
Jan 22		Texture Mapping Texture coordinate spaces, how aliasing arises during texture sampling, pre-filtering (rather than supersampling) as an anti-aliasing technique
Jan 27		Rasterizing Scenes via Depth Buffering + Alpha Compositing End-to-end 3D rasterization pipeline as implemented by modern GPUs, Z-buffer algorithm, alpha compositing
Jan 29		Radiometry, BRDFs, and the Reflection Equation Definition of radiometric quantities, the light field, BRDFs (reflection models), light transport via reflection, integrating energy reflecting from surfaces, the basics of extending to volumes
Feb 03		Recovering Scene Representations using Differentiable Rendering Recovering scene parameters from images using optimization methods like gradient descent, how to compute the gradients of rendering functions, why some scene geometry representations are much more amenable to computing gradients than others, discussion of NeRF, plenoxels, and 3D gaussians
Feb 05		Reflection Part 2 + Monte Carlo Integration Basics More advanced reflection models (specular reflection, transmittance), numerical estimation of direct illumination using Monte Carlo integration, variance reduction using importance sampling
Feb 10		Monte Carlo Evaluation of the Reflection Equation Estimating direct lighting due to various types of light sources using Monte Carlo integration
Feb 12		Global Illumination and Path Tracing Brute force path tracing, Russian roulette, challenges of variance, a more vigorous description of volume volume rendering than we had earlier in the class
Feb 17		Real-Time Ray Tracing on Modern GPU Hardware Real-time raytracing trends, hardware acceleration of ray tracing, advanced importance sampling methods (ReSTIR), and neural denoising.
Feb 19		The Theory of Color How the eye works, representing color, brightness, and chromaticity
Feb 24		Compressing Images, Videos, and Scenes Non-linear intensity encodings, chroma subsampling, JPG image compression, a bit on video compression, compressing other media, like BRDFs or scene geometry, neural compression schemes.
Feb 26		Exam Day (no class) This will be an evening exam, so there's no class
Mar 03		Neural Rendering and Interactive Neural “World Models” (What the $%@%! is a World Model Anyway?) Replacing a renderer with a DNN, replacing a full game engine with a DNN, potential pros and cons of these neural methods compared to more traditional graphics techniques
Mar 05		Rendering for Virtual and Augmented Reality Headsets VR Headset hardware, how head-mounted displays cause challenges for renderers, resolution and latency requirements, judder, foveated rendering
Mar 10		Topic TBD To be determined based on class interests.
Mar 12		Course Summary + Current Graphics Research Course wrap up, discussion of ongoing graphics research at Stanford, discussion of the future role of AI in graphics

Programming Assignments

This year CS248A will have all new programming assignments. Assignments will be written in Python and in a new GPU programming languages called Slang.

Jan 28	Assignment 1: Ray Casting Triangle Meshes, Volumes, and Signed Distance Fields, oh my!
Feb 13	Assignment 2: Neural Texturing and Differential Volume Rendering to Recover Scenes from Images
Feb 27	Assignment 3: A Global Illumination Path Tracer
TBD	Assignment 4: Self-Selected Project (which may involve training your own interactive world model)

Written Exercises

Jan 29	Written Exercise 1
Feb 10	Written Exercise 2
Feb 19	Written Exercise 3
Mar 5	Written Exercise 4