The fields of graphics, vision and imaging increasingly rely on one another. This unique and timely MSc provides training in computer graphics, geometry processing, virtual reality, machine vision and imaging technology from world-leading experts, enabling students to specialise in any of these areas and gain a grounding in the others.
Graduates will understand the basic mathematical principles underlying the development and application of new techniques in computer graphics and computer vision and will be aware of the range of algorithms and approaches available, and be able to design, develop and evaluate algorithms and methods for new problems, emerging technologies and applications.
Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits.
The programme consists of four core modules (60 credits), four optional modules (60 credits) and a research project (60 credits).
Core modules
Optional modules
Students must choose a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 30 credits from Group One options. Students must choose a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 45 credits from Group Two options.
Group One Options (15 to 30 credits)
Group Two Options (30 to 45 credits)
Please note: the availability and delivery of optional modules may vary, depending on your selection.
Dissertation/report
All students undertake an independent research project related to a problem of industrial interest or on a topic near the leading edge of research, which culminates in a 60–80 page dissertation.
Teaching and learning
The programme is delivered through a combination of lectures and tutorials. Lectures are often supported by laboratory work with help from demonstrators. Student performance is assessed by unseen written examinations, coursework and a substantial individual project.
Further information on modules and degree structure is available on the department website: Computer Graphics, Vision and Imaging MSc
Graduates are ready for employment in a wide range of high-technology companies and will be able to contribute to maintaining and enhancing the UK's position in these important and expanding areas. The MSc provides graduates with the up-to-date technical skills required to support a wealth of research and development opportunities in broad areas of computer science and engineering, such as multimedia applications, medicine, architecture, film animation and computer games. Our market research shows that the leading companies in these areas demand the deep technical knowledge that this programme provides. Graduates have found positions at global companies such as Disney, Sony and Siemens. Others have gone on to PhD programmes at leading universities worldwide.
Recent career destinations for this degree
Employability
UCL received the highest percentage (96%) for quality of research in Computer Science and Informatics in the UK's most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF2014).
Our graduates have some of the highest employment rates of any university in the UK. This degree programme also provides a foundation for further PhD study or industrial research.
Careers data is taken from the ‘Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education’ survey undertaken by HESA looking at the destinations of UK and EU students in the 2013–2015 graduating cohorts six months after graduation.
UCL Computer Science contains some of the world's leading researchers in computer graphics, geometry processing, computer vision and virtual environments.
Research activities include geometric acquisition and 3D fabrication, real-time photo-realistic rendering, mixed and augmented reality, face recognition, content-based image-database search, video-texture modelling, depth perception in stereo vision, colour imaging for industrial inspection, mapping brain function and connectivity and tracking for SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping).
The Research Excellence Framework, or REF, is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. The 2014 REF was carried out by the UK's higher education funding bodies, and the results used to allocate research funding from 2015/16.
The following REF score was awarded to the department: Computer Science
96% rated 4* (‘world-leading’) or 3* (‘internationally excellent’)
Learn more about the scope of UCL's research, and browse case studies, on our Research Impact website.
The Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour (IPAB) focuses on how to link computational perception, representation, transformation and generation processes to external worlds, in theory and in practice.
This covers domains such as visual perception, dynamic control of robot systems, active sensing and decision making, biomimetic robotics, computer-based generation of external phenomena, such as images, music or actions, and agent-based interaction within computer games and animation.
Supported by the dynamic research culture of IPAB, you can develop robots that learn their own motor control, mimic animal behaviours, or produce autonomous and coordinated team actions. Or you can work with systems that interpret real images and video, or generate complex behaviour in animated characters.
We aim to link strong theoretical perspectives with practical hands-on construction, and provide the hardware and software support to realise this vision.
You carry out your research within a research group under the guidance of a supervisor. You will be expected to attend seminars and meetings of relevant research groups and may also attend lectures that are relevant to your research topic. Periodic reviews of your progress will be conducted to assist with research planning.
A programme of transferable skills courses facilitates broader professional development in a wide range of topics, from writing and presentation skills to entrepreneurship and career strategies.
The School of Informatics holds a Silver Athena SWAN award, in recognition of our commitment to advance the representation of women in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. The School is deploying a range of strategies to help female staff and students of all stages in their careers and we seek regular feedback from our research community on our performance.
Our robotics labs contain a range of mobile platforms, robot manipulators, humanoid robots, and custom-built sensor and actuation systems that attract continuous interest from funders, industry and members of the public.
Recent developments include the UK's only NASA Valkyrie robot platform, application of robotic hardware to prosthetics and assisted living, and a team that competes in the international robot soccer league.
Our new Edinburgh Centre for Robotics (ECR) brings collaboration with Heriot-Watt University to expand the range of facilities and applications we can explore, and to fund research training.
The machine vision lab has facilities for 3D range data capture, motion capture and high-resolution and high-speed video, and the high performance computing needed for graphics is well supported, including hardware partnerships with companies such as NVIDIA.
While many of our graduates go on to highly successful academic careers, others find their niche in commercial research labs, putting their knowledge and skills to use in an industry setting.
Several of our recent graduates have set up or joined spin-out robotics companies. Our graphics researchers have strong connections to the media and games industries.
Degree: Master of Science (two years) with a major in Computer Science and Engineering.
This programme is aimed at students with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. You will learn to master the theoretical foundations in the field and how to integrate them with other technologies.
Computer science is one of the most dynamic and expansive fields of science. In addition to having a deep understanding of the theoretical and technical foundations, professionals in this field must be able to apply the technology to challenging problems, and integrate it with other technologies. Applicants should have an adequate background in computer science and good programming skills.
The first three semesters include not only core courses in theoretical computer science and programming, but also elective courses such as artificial intelligence, databases and data mining, the design and programming of computer games, information security, advanced computer graphics, and human-computer interaction. Most courses feature lectures in theory and techniques, which are applied in practical laboratory work. Some courses also feature projects and seminars.
The programme offers five specialisations:
It is not mandatory to follow a specialisation – you may also tailor your own combination of courses, with full freedom of choice. All specialisations are offered in Linköping, except Visualisation and Computer Graphics, which is given at Campus Norrköping.
In the final semester you write a thesis, either on your own or with a fellow student. The work may be carried out in collaboration with a company, or as a research project with the university.
Linköping University is home to one of the most important centres of computer science and engineering in Northern Europe, renowned for top-quality research and education. Science Park Mjärdevi, an incubator with 300 knowledge-intensive companies where many of our alumni are employed, is adjacent to the campus.
This MSc is aimed at students with a passion for computer games and a strong interest in programming. It is designed to develop your career in the games industry. The course will help you build on your undergraduate degree (which should be in a numerate subject with substantial computing content) or help you update your skills after a time in industry as a computing professional.
The Computer Games Technology MSc will help you to develop:
This course is accredited by TIGA, a non-profit UK trade association representing the UK's games industry. This course is also accredited by the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, as fulfilling the academic requirement for registration as Chartered IT Professional (CITP) and partially fulfilling the requirements for Chartered Engineer (CEng) or Chartered Scientist (CSci), subject to re-accreditation in 2017.
As a postgraduate student on a Computing and Information Systems course, you will have the opportunity to complete up to six months of professional experience as part of your degree.
Our longstanding internship scheme gives you the chance to apply the knowledge and skills gained from your taught modules within a real business environment. An internship also provides you with professional development opportunities that enhance your technical skills and business knowledge.
Internships delivered by City, University of London offer an exceptional opportunity to help you stand out in the competitive IT industry job market. The structure of the course extends the period for dissertation submission to January, allowing you to work full-time for up to six months. You will be supported by our outstanding Professional Liaison Unit (PLU) should you wish to consider undertaking this route.
The teaching and learning methods we use mean that your specialist knowledge and autonomy increase as you progress through each module. Active researchers guide your progress in the areas of Games Development, Computer Graphics, Artificial Intelligence and Audio, which culminates with an individual project. This is an original piece of research conducted with academic supervision, but largely independently and, where appropriate, in collaboration with industrial partners.
Taught modules are delivered through a series of 20 hours of lectures and 10 hours of tutorials/laboratory sessions. Lectures are normally used to:
Tutorials help you develop the skills to apply the concepts we have covered in the lectures. We normally achieve this through practical problem-solving contexts.
Laboratory sessions give you the opportunity to apply concepts and techniques using state-of-the-art software, environments and development tools. In addition, City's online learning environment, Moodle, contains resources for each of the modules - from lecture notes and lab materials, to coursework feedback, model answers, and an interactive discussion forum.
We expect you to study independently and complete coursework for each module. This should amount to approximately 120 hours per module if you are studying full time. Modules are assessed through written examination and coursework, where you will need to answer theoretical and practical questions to demonstrate that you can analyse and apply computer games technology methods.
The individual project is a substantial task. It is your opportunity to develop an autonomous research-related topic under the supervision of an academic member of staff. This is the moment when you can apply your learning to solve a real-world problem, designing and implementing a solution and evaluating the result. At the end of the project you submit a substantial MSc project report, which becomes the mode of assessment for this part of the programme.
The programme is composed of eight taught modules - seven core modules and one elective module - plus a final project.
The modules provide you with a firm grounding in computer games technology, including mathematics, programming, and game engines and architecture along with specialist topics in computer graphics, physics, AI, and audio.
The project component gives you an opportunity to carry out an extended piece of work under the supervision of one of our specialist academic and research staff, at the cutting edge of games technology, in an industrial or academic context.
This MSc will equip you with advanced knowledge and skills in a range of topics in games technology in preparation for a career in computer games development.
Alumni of the course are working in companies including:
City has a dedicated incubation space, called City Launch Lab that is specially designed for student entrepreneurs from City, University of London who want to get their idea off the ground.
Visit our website for more information on fees, scholarships, postgraduate loans and other funding options to study Advanced Computer Science at Swansea University - 'Welsh University of the Year 2017' (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017).
On the MSc in Advanced Computer Science course you will be thoroughly prepared for a career in IT or related industries. The Advanced Computer Science course is for you if you are a Computer Science graduate or if you have gained experience of computing and programming in a different first degree. Willingness to work hard and an ability to problem solve are equally important for this MSc in Advanced Computer Science. The MSc in Advanced Computer Science course will develop the skills and knowledge you have gained from your first degree by broadening and deepening your knowledge of Computer Science through a variety of advanced modules and material. The MSc in Advanced Computer Science is accredited by the British Computer Society.
• We are top in the UK for career prospects*
• We are 3rd in the UK for teaching quality**
• 5th in the UK overall*
• 7th in the UK for student satisfaction with 98% [National Student Survey 2016]
• 7th in the UK overall and Top in Wales*
• High employability prospects - we are 8th in the UK for graduate prospects*
• 92% in graduate employment or further study six months after leaving University [HESA data 2014/15]
• UK TOP 20 for Research Excellence [Research Excellence Framework 2014]
• Our Project Fair allows students to present their work to local industry
• Strong links with industry
• £31m Computational Foundry for computer and mathematical sciences will provide the most up-to-date and high quality teaching facilities featuring world-leading experimental set-ups, devices and prototypes to accelerate innovation and ensure students will be ready for exciting and successful careers. (From September 2018)
*Guardian University Guide 2017
**Times & Sunday Times University Guide 2016
Modules for the MSc in Advanced Computer Science include Computer Science Project Research Methods but please visit our course page for more information.
The Department of Computer Science is well equipped for teaching, and is continually upgrading its laboratories to ensure equipment is up-to-date – equipment is never more than three years old, and rarely more than two. Currently, our Computer Science students use three fully networked laboratories: one, running Windows; another running Linux; and a project laboratory, containing specialised equipment. These laboratories support a wide range of software, including the programming languages Java, C# and the .net framework, C, C++, Haskell and Prolog among many; integrated programme development environments such as Visual Studio and Netbeans; the widely-used Microsoft Office package; web access tools; and many special purpose software tools including graphical rendering and image manipulation tools; expert system production tools; concurrent system modelling tools; World Wide Web authoring tools; and databases.
As part of the expansion of the Department of Computer Science, we are building the Computational Foundry on our Bay Campus for computer science and mathematical science.
All Computer Science courses will provide you the transferable skills and knowledge to help you take advantage of the excellent employment and career development prospects in an ever growing and changing computing and ICT industry.
94% of our Postgraduate Taught Graduates of Computer Science were in professional level work or study [DLHE 14/15]
Francesca Madeddu, originally from Italy, completed an outstanding Master’s thesis (which earned her a distinction) investigating interaction with augmented reality on mobile devices. More specifically, she investigated how to interact with virtual Egyptian artefacts placed in real scenes. The final game was deployed at Swansea's Egypt Centre last year and was evaluated by volunteers working at the museum. A Master’s thesis does not often lead to a publication. However, part of Francesca's research was written up as an extended abstract and presented at Computer Graphics and Visual Computing (CGVC), a Eurographics UK conference for visual computing last year. An exceptional achievement!
By studying this Masters, you’ll be well placed to join one of the most performance-driven applications of computer science – the multi-billion pound global games industry. As a graduate, you will work at the top-end of the games industry and will develop computer graphics on high-performance platforms, or write engines for the next generation of games.
Developed in collaboration with a prestigious steering group, this course will build on your computer science knowledge to specialise in computer graphics, where programmers must push computing resources to the limit, using deep understanding of architecture and high-performance programming to generate new levels of graphical realism and visual effects on cutting-edge hardware platforms.
You’ll gain proficiency in low-level programming, a thorough understanding of multi-core and many-core programming techniques, game engine and tool development techniques, and fundamental insight into graphics and the practical techniques used in games.
Designed to meet the needs of industry
You can be sure that what you learn will be the technical skills required by industry as this course has been developed in collaboration with a prestigious steering group from industry comprising:
Members of our steering group will contribute to the delivery of the course ensuring that you learn the latest industry developments. You’ll also have the opportunity to engage directly with the games industry, through:
We are also a member of Game Republic, which is an industry-led professional games network that supports and promotes the Yorkshire and Northern England games sector. We hope that students of this course will take part in the Game Republic student showcase.
Specialist facilities
You will use workstations with high-end GPUs to act as DirectX12 and Vulkan games development platforms and have access to other specialist hardware including the latest Virtual Reality headsets for experimenting on. For learning games engine design and exploring new rendering techniques, students will be working with the source code of a leading game engine, Epic’s “Unreal Engine 4”.
The accredited Master of Science program in Computer Science is a two-year program that has been designed for international and German graduate students. The curriculum is very flexible. Students can compile their individual study plans based on their background and interests. It is also a very practical program. In addition to lectures and tutorials, students will complete two seminars, one or two projects and the master thesis.
In the beginning students will choose one or two key courses. Key courses are courses which introduce the students to the research areas represented at the Department of Computer Science. The following key courses are offered:
• Algorithm Theory
• Pattern Recognition
• Databases and Information Systems
• Software Engineering
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture
After that, students can specialize in one of the following three areas:
• Cyber-Physical Systems
• Information Systems
• Cognitive Technical Systems
Here are some examples of subjects offered in the three specialization areas:
Cyber-Physical Systems:
• Cyber-Physical Systems – Discrete Models
• Cyber-Physical Systems – Hybrid Control
• Real Time Operation Systems and Reliability
• Verification of Embedded Systems
• Test and Reliability
• Decision Procedures
• Software Design, Modeling and Analysis in UML
• Formal Methods for Java
• Concurrency: Theory and Practice
• Compiler Construction
• Distributed Systems
• Constraint Satisfaction Problems
• Modal Logic
• Peer-to-Peer Networks
• Program Analysis
• Model Driven Engineering
Information Systems:
• Information Retrieval Data Models and Query Languages
• Peer-to-Peer Networks
• Distributed Storage
• Software Design, Modeling and Analysis in UML
• Security in Large-Scale Distributed Enterprises
• Machine Learning
• Efficient Route Planning
• Bioinformatics I
• Bioinformatics II
• Game Theory
• Knowledge Representation
• Distributed Systems
Cognitive Technical Systems:
• Computer Vision I
• Computer Vision II
• Statistical Pattern Recognition
• Mobile Robotics II
• Simulation in Computer Graphics
• Advanced Computer Graphics
• AI Planning
• Game Theory
• Knowledge Representation
• Constraint Satisfaction Problems
• Modal Logic
• Reinforcement Learning
• Machine Learning
• Mobile Robotics I
We believe that it is important for computer science students to get a basic knowledge in a field in which they might work after graduation. Therefore, our students have the opportunity to complete several courses and/or a project in one of the following application areas:
In the last semester, students work on their master’s thesis. They are expected to tackle an actual research question in close cooperation with a professor and his/her staff.
You are expected to come from a technical background (Computer Science, Physics, Maths, Engineering) with an existing knowledge of programming and the course will build upon this, providing you with a combination of artistic sensibilities, problem-solving and technical skills, which can be applied to the role of technical director within the animation and games industries. Technical directors often have to work alongside computer animators and resolve technical problems either by configuring existing software tools or designing new tools.
During your year-long study, you will develop your programming and scripting skills, and become familiar with special techniques and tools associated with computer animation. These skills are assessed in a variety of projects you will undertake during the year. Emphasis is placed on the use of industry standard hardware and software in the development of these techniques. Typical examples include the development of C++ programs to test new algorithms, the writing of shaders to support rendering, and the developing of scripts and tools to create new effects.
The academic aspects will provide you with a strong theoretical underpinning for the principal areas of study, including lecture series on computer graphics techniques, animation software development, principles of computer graphics, the fusion of art and technology, and personal research projects. You will also have the opportunity to collaborate with students on the other two Master’s courses in the Group Project. This format provides a realistic setting to discover what it’s like working with other creative people and working to a strict timescale.
The course attracts students from all over the world, giving it a strong interdisciplinary, international feel.
