On the Pedagogy of Teaching Introductory Computer Graphics without Rendering APIs

Abstract

Teaching modern computer graphics programming has become increasingly challenging due to the advancement in the granularity of application programming interfaces (APIs). In this paper, we put forward a discussion on the pedagogical value of implementing a software rasteriser prior to tackling the issues of learning modern graphics APIs and shader programming. An API-free approach to teaching introductory computer graphics along with its assessment strategy are presented. Our observation found that students were more effective and confident in learning and using modern rendering APIs when subsequently studying advanced real-time graphics.