Teaching the course "Computer Graphics Programming" within the Department of Computer Science

Computer Graphics Programming course is a part of an extraordinarily dynamic IT field of the last decade. "Computer Graphics Programming" represents an extremely attractive course for most of the students due to the spectacular applications it might have. The teaching of the course has required an updating of the curriculum with the newest achievements in the field, not leaving aside the teaching of the graphics notions. Taking into consideration the students' difficulties in visualising the 3D images, the use of software applications support is appropriate. This paper presents the curricula changes for the better throughout the years 1996-2003 so that it should correspond to the requirements students have, but without losing sight of the scientific aspect of the course. It is also presented the way in which the practical applications of the course were conceived so that out of a large number of software libraries existing on the market, only the most representatives ones were selected and are now studied. A few applications used in teaching some essential notions of 3D graphics are then presented. They manage to explain how to program in order to visualise 3D scenes. The paper also presents the results of a survey for students' evaluation of the course.