CS 488/688: Introduction to Computer Graphics

Winter 2026

Welcome to the home page for CS488/688, the introductory computer graphics course in the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. This course focuses on 3D graphics, although it does discuss some aspects of user interface design. CS488/688 has a fairly heavy project component and should not be taken in conjunction with other heavy project courses.

Course logistics for Winter 2026

Instructor
Gladimir V. G. Baranoski
gvgbaran@uwaterloo.ca
Office hours: Friday, 4:00 – 5:00 PM in DC 3520
Teaching Assistants
Matthew Avolio
mavolio@uwaterloo.ca
Office hours: Tuesday, 1:00 – 2:00 PM, MC 3007

Frank Fan
yuheng.fan@uwaterloo.ca
Office hours: Wednesday, 1:30 – 2:30 PM, MC 3007

Lectures
Tuesday and Thursday, from 4:00 – 5:20 PM, MC 2038
Lab
MC 3007. There are no scheduled lab times. The lab is available 24 hours a day for students enrolled in CS 488/688. The code to open the lab will be provided in class.
Exams
Midterm: Thursday, February 12 at Lecture time in MC 2038.
Final: TBA
Course Outline
The course outline contains general information about the course, including the marking scheme.
Required Texts
  • CS 488/688 Lecture notes.
  • The instructor may also release in the Course Lessons Website reading materials associated with the contents covered in each lecture. These materials will be made available after the repsective lectures. For specific questions already related to these materials, students should attend the instructor's office hours.
Recommended Texts
  • OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, by Kessenich et al.
  • Computer Graphics with Open GL, by Hearn, Baker and Carithers.
The Davis Centre library has these and other useful books for loan at the reserve desk.
Getting help
We will use Piazza only for questions directly related to the assignments and project. Students should have been signed up at the start of the term. If you have enrolled later in the course, you will need to contact the course staff for access to Piazza. Students should address any other course related issues during the instructor's office hours.

Winter 2026 Assignments

Additional Resources

Start by visiting the old home page for the course, where you'll find lots of other useful information and links.

  • Check out the OpenGL and Lua tutorials (from previous terms) on the course Course Lessons Website.
  • The website open.gl is a great starting point for programming in modern OpenGL, featuring a sequence of well written tutorials.
  • See also the longer sequence of tutorials at learnopengl.com, which go into more detail about specific topics.
  • Song Ho Ahn also has a number of useful tutorials that explain concepts in 3D computer graphics, especially as related to the OpenGL graphics pipeline.
  • Visit docs.gl for the best OpenGL API reference.
  • You might also want to look at Terence's OpenGL tutorial slides.