Designing interactive visualization tools for the graphics classroom

Student comprehension of the concepts and algorithms in computer graphics requires a thorough visual understanding of the processes involved. To assist this understanding in the computer graphics course at the Air Force Academy, a set of interactive visualization programs were created for classroom use. These programs demonstrate key graphic concepts using various visual metaphors. The process of creating and using these tools in the classroom highlighted several design guidelines when creating classroom visualization tools. This paper describes these design guidelines, and the way in which the tools are used in the classroom to support lecture material. The paper concludes with our experience using these tools and future plans.