By Lana Lazebnik, DePaul University. Study Materials Students need to practice visual analysis outside of the classroom. Simply looking at images does not promote active learning. However it takes a significant amount of time to learn a package, and since the students have a priori knowledge of the surface and shading algorithms, this approach does not provide a student with a means of self assessment. A student can choose a scene and select a rendering algorithm for any object in the scene.
Students then guess the rendering algorithm for each object in the scene.
For instance, Gouraud and Phong shading produce similar effects when no highlight is present. A pop-up window will list the algorithm they picked and the actual algorithm in addition to a specific explanation of why the two algorithms produced effects that are visually equivalent. For example, if a flat surface is very evenly lit, then Gouraud shading may produce variations in shade that are so subtle that the result looks like constant shading. See Figure 2. The new version of TERA is capable of creating nearly a million images for students to analyze.