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Encyclopedia > Graphics pipeline

In 3D computer graphics, the terms graphics pipeline or rendering pipeline most commonly refer to the current state of the art method of rasterization-based rendering as supported by commodity graphics hardware[1]. The graphics pipeline typically accepts some representation of a 3D scene as an input and results in a 2D raster image as output. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Computer graphics (CG) is the field of visual computing, where one utilizes computers both to generate visual images synthetically and to integrate or alter visual and spatial information sampled from the real world. ... Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ... A graphics card, video card, v card, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter [1] is a computer component designed to convert the logical representation of visual information into a signal that can be used as input for a display medium. ... Dimension (from Latin measured out) is, in essence, the number of degrees of freedom available for movement in a space. ... Suppose the smiley face in the top left corner is an RGB bitmap image. ...

Contents


Stages of the graphics pipeline[2]:

Modeling transformation

In this stage the 3D geometry provided as input is established in what is known as 3D world-space—a conceptual orientation and arrangement in 3D space. This could include transformations on the local object-space of geometric primitives such as translation, rotation, The term geometric primitive in computer graphics and CAD systems is used in various senses, with common meaning of atomic geometric objects the system can handle (draw, store). ...


Lighting

Geometry in the complete 3D scene is lit according to the defined locations of light sources and reflectance and other surface properties. Current hardware implementations of the graphics pipeline compute lighting only at the vertices of the polygons being rendered. The lighting values between vertices are then interpolated during rasterization. Per-pixel lighting can be done on modern graphics hardware as a post-rasterization process by means of a fragment shader program. Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ... Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ... A shader is a program used in 3D computer graphics to determine the final surface properties of an object or image. ...


Viewing transformation

Objects are transformed from 3D world-space coordinates into a 3D coordinate system based on the position and orientation of a virtual camera. This results in the original 3D scene as seen from the camera’s point of view, defined in what it called eye-space or camera-space.


Projection transformation

In this stage of the graphics pipeline, geometry is transformed from the eye-space of the rendering camera into 2D image-space, mapping the 3D scene onto a plane as seen from the virtual camera.


Clipping

For more details on this topic, see Clipping (computer graphics).

Geometric primitives that now fall outside of the viewing frustum will not be visible and are discarded at this stage. Clipping is not necessary to achieve a correct image output, but it accelerates the rendering process by eliminating the unneeded rasterization and post-processing on primitives that will not appear anyway. When rendering graphics, clipping refers to the task of making sure that only the visible part is actually drawn. ... In 3D computer graphics, the viewing frustum or view frustum is the region of space in the modeled world that may appear on the screen; it is the field of view of the notional camera. ... When rendering graphics, clipping refers to the task of making sure that only the visible part is actually drawn. ... Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ...


Scan conversion or rasterization

Rasterization is the process by which the 2D image-space representation of the scene is converted into raster format and the correct resulting pixel values are determined. Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ... Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ... A pixel (pix, 1932 abbreviation of pictures, coined by Variety headline writers + element) is one of the many tiny dots that make up the representation of a picture in a computers memory. ...


Texturing or shading

At this stage of the pipeline individual fragments (or pre-pixels) are assigned a color based on values interpolated from the vertices during rasterization or from a texture in memory. Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ...


Display

The final colored pixels can then be displayed on a computer monitor or other display.


The Graphics Pipeline in Hardware

The rendering pipeline is mapped onto current graphics acceleration hardware such that the input to the graphics card (GPU) is in the form of vertices. These vertices then undergo transformation and per-vertex lighting. At this point in modern GPU pipelines a custom vertex shader program can be used to manipulate the 3D vertices prior to rasterization. Once transformed and lit, the vertices undergo clipping and rasterization resulting in fragments. A second custom shader program can then be run on each fragment before the final pixel values are output to the frame buffer for display. A graphics card, video card, v card, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter [1] is a computer component designed to convert the logical representation of visual information into a signal that can be used as input for a display medium. ... A shader is a program used in 3D computer graphics to determine the final surface properties of an object or image. ... Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ... Rasterization is the task of taking an image described in an outline format, and converting it into a series of dots for output on a dot matrix display or printer. ... The framebuffer is a part of RAM in a computer allocated to hold the graphics information for one frame or picture. ...


The graphics pipeline is well suited to the rendering process because it allows the GPU to function as a stream processor since all vertices and fragments can be thought of as independent. This allows all stages of the pipeline to be used simultaneously for different vertices or fragments as they work their way through the pipe. In addition to pipelining vertices and fragments, their independence allows graphics processors to use parallel processing units to process multiple vertices or fragments in a single stage of the pipeline at the same time. A relatively new, yet very successful paradigm to allow parallel processing at never-seen-before efficiency with minimal effort. ... A vector processor, or array processor, is a CPU design that is able to run mathematical operations on multiple data elements simultaneously. ...


References

  1. ^  Graphics pipeline. (n.d.). Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 13, 2005, from Answers.com Web site: [3]
  2. ^  Raster Graphics and Color 2004 by Greg Humphreys at the University of Virginia

See also

Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model, by means of a software program. ... GeForce 6600GT (NV43) GPU Radeon 9800 Pro (R350) GPU A Graphics Processing Unit or GPU (also occasionally called Visual Processing Unit or VPU) is a dedicated graphics rendering device for a personal computer or game console. ... A relatively new, yet very successful paradigm to allow parallel processing at never-seen-before efficiency with minimal effort. ... A shader is a program used in 3D computer graphics to determine the final surface properties of an object or image. ... NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) is a major supplier of graphics processors (graphics processing units, GPUs), graphics cards, and media and communications devices for PCs and game consoles (Xbox). ... ATI Technologies Inc. ...

External links


  Results from FactBites:
 
Efficient graphics pipeline with a pixel cache and data pre-fetching - Patent 6801203 (7315 words)
The graphics sub-system comprises a rasterizer for traversing graphics primitives of the graphics data to generate pixel coordinates for pixels corresponding to the graphics primitives; a graphics pipeline for processing the graphics data of the pixels; and a pixel cache for caching the pixel data.
pre-fetching graphics data associated with a second aspect of the graphic from a memory to a second cache that is associated with a second graphics pipeline that processes data associated with the second aspect of the graphic, the second aspect of the graphic being different from the first aspect of the graphic; and
pre-fetching graphics data associated with a third aspect of the graphic from a memory to a third cache that is associated with a third graphics pipeline that processes data associated with the third aspect of the graphic, the third aspect of the graphic being different from the first and second aspects of the graphic.
Java2D Rendering pipeline (1374 words)
When the graphics object has complex properties such as arbitrary affine transforms, transparency, rendering hints, etc., it is often not possible to support these properties directly in the native graphics library.
The properties of a graphics object determines the best rendering strategy, and that graphics objects are not immutable, (meaning, the properties may change during the lifetime of the graphics object).
This is the basic strategy for the rendering pipeline: Whenever a graphics property change occurs, that causes the current pipeline to be insufficient, amend or replace parts of the pipeline so that the pipeline will once again be able to translate requests to the set of primitives supported by the native graphics library.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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