Computer graphics has traditionally serve
as a motivational tool for teaching other
topics. However, we noticed that our students weren’t always motivated by this. Three years ago, after fi nding really poor results when using the tradi-
tional OpenGL-and-GLUT (OpenGL Utility Toolkit) approach in lab work and assignments, we discovered an interesting new tool: the Processing language and development environment (www.processing.org). Processing is easy to learn, open source, Java-based, and scalable. Our students can now put into practice 2D, 3D, animation, and interaction techniques in just a few hours (see Figure 1). Processing was de-
signed for visual artists, and its popularity is growing quickly in the computer graphics community.