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Show light source in 1/30 second. It takes almost an hour, CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Yet it was not, in reality, DiClspar he was examining. He was moving through the memory cells, looking at the dreClm image of the citv ... To the computers, the memory circits, and all the multitudinous mechanisms that created the image at which Alvin was looking, it was merely a simple problem of perspective. They 'knew' the form of the city: therefore they could show it as it would appear from the outside. Arthur C. Clarke, The City nd The StClrs In the branch of computer graphics known colloquially as "hidden surface elimination" the goals have trClditionally been to generate more and more realistic pictures of three dimensional objects and to produce them at qreater and greater speed. It is now possible to make images of matte finished polyhedral objects illuminated by a siNgle point however, to make pictures of shiny, curved surfaces illuminated by several windows. This thesis represents yet another attempt to push back the current frontiers of both realism and speed in rendering three dimensional curved surfaces. The realism is improved by more accurate models of how light reflects off surfaces and simulations of roughened or textured surfaces. The speed is improved by a scan line based algorithm which detects key locations on the |
