蜜桃传媒

Two computer science majors funded by the John S. Toll Research Program started the summer with the intensive project overseen by Professor Shaun Ramsey. 

Professor Shaun Ramsey works with computer science majors Bryce Widdoss '26 and Caleb Jiminez '28 on a Toll Research Grant funded project creating educational videos on ray marching, a graphics technique.

It seems like there is a YouTube tutorial for everything, and that is true for academic subjects as well as how-to videos. Technologically inclined students and professionals teach themselves coding languages, concepts, and new skills by seeking out videos, sample code, and more from fellow programmers. 
But the profusion of resources online brings challenges as well as benefits. It can be hard to find information in the order one needs to learn it. There can be gaps in explanations, or tutorials that start with an assumption of significant background knowledge.  

Computer science professor Shaun Ramsey noticed this unfortunate dynamic in material about a computer graphics technique called ray marching, which creates images using a theoretical mathematical approach rather than traditional rasterization. (Rasterization converts images drawn with lines and shapes into pixels. A way to visualize this might be how what you see changes as you draw closer to pointillist paintings, such as Georges-Pierre Seurat's .)

With ray marching, repeated calculations use the distance of objects from a point walking along a theoretical ray extending from the viewer that allows real-time rendering in computer animation, in medical imaging applications converting data into on-screen visualizations, or in video games, particularly for creating 3-D objects like clouds.   

Where some see a problem with inadequate educational materials, Ramsey sees opportunities. For the last several summers, he has guided 蜜桃传媒 students in summer research projects funded by the John S. Toll Research Program to create open-source educational materials in specific computer science topics, to great success for both the products and how much the students learn in the process.

鈥淭o me, the projects that are appealing are those where I get to push on educational materials in challenging or complicated areas,鈥� Ramsey said. 鈥淚 definitely look for places where I feel there are holes in free resources that we can fill with useful tools.鈥�

This summer, Ramsey set up two computer science majors, Bryce Widdoss 鈥�26 and Caleb Jiminez 鈥�28, to learn about ray marching, the math behind it, and the GLSL programming language to implement the technique on a graphics card, after which he had them create educational materials to fill that gap in online tutorials...all in just five weeks.

At the start of the project, Ramsey provided some basics about what they were going to learn, their goals for the project, and initial resources, including some he knew would not fully answer Jiminez and Widdoss鈥� questions, challenging them to take note of holes in the materials, questions that remained, and general needs. Ramsey answered questions and filled in knowledge gaps as Jiminez and Widdoss spent the first two to three weeks learning and taking detailed notes. They confirmed what Ramsey had noticed about existing resources.

鈥淚t's either scattered or too complicated,鈥� Widdoss said. 鈥淭here's a lot of scattered beginner concepts, and then everything else that goes in depth starts at a high level.鈥�

After the first couple weeks of intensive study鈥攐f the technique, relevant math, and programming language鈥攖he project and the team shifted gears. Jiminez and Widdoss understood ray marching and had used it themselves in an online tool called shadertoy. Now they needed to figure out how to convey what they had learned.  

Knowing that creating any educational materials was the ultimate goal provided valuable motivation and had an impact on the students.

鈥淗aving to teach it to someone else made me learn it a lot more in-depth,鈥� Jiminez said, 鈥渟o I learned it better for myself.鈥�

While the initial plan was to write documentation explaining the concepts and techniques, Jiminez and Widdoss decided they would use the format in which they had found so much of the existing, but incomplete, materials already online: video. (Jiminez has continued to work through the subject on his own after the end of the project with the plan to eventually write things out, feeling it will challenge him to understand things even more thoroughly.)

With time on the Toll project running short, Jiminez and Widdoss decided to divvy up the work. While both worked on all aspects of the project, Widdoss ended up scripting and recording most of the videos while Jiminez coded most of the examples that illustrate what Widdoss is saying.

鈥淚 trusted Bryce and Caleb could get there, and they didn鈥檛 disappoint,鈥� Ramsey said. 鈥淚t is really impressive when you think how much they got completed this summer.鈥� 

鈥擬ark Jolly-Van Bodegraven

Ray Marching Resources created by Jiminez, Widdoss, and Ramsey