“A GPU Shader Programming Workshop” by Bailey and Cunningham

Shader programming is fast becoming an essential skill for computer graphics students. Using shaders, programmers have the flexibility to perform amazing vertex-by-vertex and pixel-by-pixel effects, combined with the parallel-processor performance to use shaders in interactive graphics. The emergence of shader programming is having profound effects on all areas of computer graphics including science, engineering, art, animation, and gaming. Because it is new, experience with teaching it is scarce. We taught such a class at OSU last spring, and thus have experience with teaching the topic, along with making up classroom examples and assignments. As part of that class, we developed a hands-on program called glman. glman allows students to create a shader scene description file which not only creates the 3D scene, but creates an interactive user interface to adjust shader parameters. Our experience is that glman is flexible enough to demonstrate and experiment with many shader concepts, and creates a fast and fun learning curve for the students.

We propose using glman as a basis for a SIGGRAPH Educators workshop. At the very least, it would involve presentations and live demos. But, the goal really is to obtain some number of shader-enabled graphics system loaners and teach this workshop hands-on. All attendees will be given (or can download on the web) the glman software, documentation, class notes, and many example files. Also, as we are currently writing a textbook on this topic, we will have very good class notes for the attendees. Thus, this workshop would be a shortcut to anyone who wants to offer such a course at their own institution.