Scientific Visualization (SS 2026)

Registration

 Selma; exercise and password: Opal Course

Lecture

Schedule & Slides

Password in Opal Course and in first lecture.
Part I: Stereo (videos)
13.04.26 Perception and Displays (slides)
20.04.26 4.DS Rendering (slides)

Part II: Particles (videos)
20.04.26 5.DS Basics Lecture 1 (slides^{last update 11.05.26})
27.04.26 Basics Lecture 2
04.05.26 no lecture due to Eurographics
11.05.26 Many Particles and Derived Surfaces (slides^{last update 18.05.26})

Part III Terrain
18.05.26 Terrain Lecture 1 (slides^{updated 01.06.26})
25.05.26 no lecture due to Pentecost
01.06.26 Terrain Lecture 2

Part IV: Volume (slides, videos)
08.06.26 Data Preparation
15.06.25 Indirect and Direct Visualization ... only video feed
22.06.26 Advanced Techniques Lecture 1
29.06.26 Advanced Techniques Lecture 2

Part V: Topology
06.07.26 Topology 1 (slides^SS25)
13.07.26 Topology 2

Closing
20.07.26 Exam Preparation

Course Overview

The course Scientific Visualization covers five topics from the broad area of Scientific Visualization. The topics are aligned with the research areas of the Chair of Computer Graphics and Visualization. Narrowing down the topics allows to study each topic in medium detail with two or three lectures for each topic. In the course schedule you find links to trailer videos for each topic. Exercises are organized such that you can train the theoretical concepts and get practical programming experience in the topics.

The course focuses on real-time rendering techniques and data processing and analysis techniques as detailed in the description of the five topics:

Stereo: SciVis techniques often map data to 3D scenes, which can be perceived much better with stereoscopic rendering. In the Stereo topic we cover depth perception of the human visual system, discuss stereoscopic display technology and study stereoscopic rendering in detail. The stereo rendering part builds on perspective transformations and the OpenGL rendering pipeline introduced in CG1 and DataVis.

Particles: particles are the atomic entity onto which a lot of simulation approaches build. Furthermore, a lot natural phenomena can be explained by splitting them into particles. This topic covers rendering approaches for large particle datasets in form of individual glyphs, trajectories or particle clusters. GPU-based glyph raycasting is introduced which on the one hand is a very efficient rendering technique and on the other hand gives you deep insides into shader programming and efficient of the rendering pipeline

Terrain: digital elevation models are today available on planet scale for earth, moon and mars. Compared to most other rendering problems, terrain models have a huge extent and can be seen at the same time close to the viewer as well as far away. We will study the problem of view-dependent adaptation of terrain models for real-time rendering of huge terrain models.

Volume: volumetric data can be measured for example by MRT, CT and light sheet microscopy; but is also the result of a simulation approaches in physics, material and engineering sciences. We will study cubic interpolation techniques, the volume rendering integral and different rendering algorithms for regular grids and tetrahedral mesh. Finally, we discuss advanced transfer function design and surface extraction techniques.

Topology: in this topic we study mathematical structures of datasets that are based on information of connectedness. Examples are contour and Reeb trees or the Morse Smale complex. This structures can be used for a plausible simplification or segmentation of data. This fosters faster comprehension especially in case of complex or noisy data.

Exam

registration: MA CMS students through Selma, MA INF/MedINF master exam office (check "Complex Examinations" here), BA INF/MedINF students please use exam office forms (here)
mode: written exam ... for CMS, Bachelor and Erasmus students
time & place: tba 
duration: 90min for written exam for CMS, Bachelor and Erasmus students - other students see module descriptions
For oral exams contact Jana Bohl.

Preparation

questionnaire: pdf
sample exam: see Opal course
joint consultation: tba

Excercises

Supervisors:   Lennart Woidtke
Time & Place: Monday 5. DS (14:50-16:20), APB/E023/U

There are four practical exercises and an introduction exercise to the used framework. Enroll in the  Opal Course to participate and to see detailed information about the exercise schedule.