More Info Spectrum is a modular, extensible architecture for rendering synthetic images. The system has been implemented in both the Cedar and C programming languages. Here's a description of the system proposal as presented at a Siggraph '93 course on large-scale graphics systems. These issues are addressed in order.
Students can actually implement their ideas and see how they work, often entirely on their own.
The excitement of carrying out your own creative work and producing a new result is a powerful force for human expression - novelists, painters, landscapers, and programmers have this in common. To realize that you are demonstrably wrong about something is both sobering and instructive, since understanding an error often provides a path to understanding the deeper principle that has been violated. One of the joys of computer graphics is that you can often see your errors. Every programmer has produced pictures that just don't look right. There's no question at such a time - something is wrong and needs to be understood and corrected.