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3D Basics
3D acceleration was originally available on professional CAD cards costing more than $1500. Currently 3D acceleration is available with almost any graphic card and has quickly become an important buying feature for the average consumer who wants to:
While 3D is currently used primarily for games and design work, it is increasingly incorporated into other common applications: The 3D Graphics Pipeline
Scene Manager:
"Virtual World" database management
Polygon List
Collision detection, culling
Geometry ProcessorTransformation of 3D objects into a 2D image, "viewpoint" Lighting Set up calculations Rendering Engine Hidden surface removal shading, texturing, anti-aliasing, fog Displaying of pixels. Triangle set-up engines
Triangle set-up engines first create a wire-frame outline of 3D objects out of different size polygons
Earlier design controllers relied on CPU to perform this operation, slowing overall system performance
Newer 3D accelerator designs integrate triangle set-up into hardware to “off-load” this function from the CPU on to the 3D accelerator, speeding up system performanceThe 3D figure is rendered by a “pipeline” of processes designed to increase the realism of the object Processes allow the individual polygons to be color-adjusted, illuminated, surrounded by “fogging”, adjusted for perspective, smoothed, etc.
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