Curved Surfaces Ahead
Curved Surfaces Ahead
Rather than use numerous triangles to express a curved surface, 3D artists and programmers have another tool at their disposal: higher-order surfaces. These are curved primitives that have more complex mathematical descriptions, but in some cases, this added complexity is still cheaper than describing an object with a multitude of triangles. These primitives [...]
You Down With LOD?
You Down With LOD?
Another method for avoiding excessive work is what’s called object Level of Detail, referred to as LOD. This technique is lossy, though given how it’s typically used, the loss of model detail is often imperceptible. Object models are built using several discrete LOD levels. A good example is a jet fighter with [...]
3D Pipeline Data Flow
3D Pipeline Data Flow
In some sense, 3D chips have become physical incarnations of the pipeline, where data flows “downstream” from stage to stage. It is useful to note that most operations in the application/scene stage and the early geometry stage of the pipeline are done per vertex, whereas culling and clipping is done per triangle, [...]
Deeper Into Space
Deeper Into Space
Clip Space: Similar to View Space, but the frustum is now “squished” into a unit cube, with the x and y coordinates normalized to a range between -1 and 1, and z is between 0 and 1, which simplifies clipping calculations. The “perspective divide” performs the normalization feat, by dividing all x, y, [...]
Space Invaders
Space Invaders
Before we dive into pipeline details, we need to first understand the high level view of how 3D objects and 3D worlds are defined and how objects are defined, placed, located, and manipulated in larger three-dimensional spaces, or even within their own boundaries. In a 3D rendering system, multiple Cartesian coordinate systems (x- (left/right), [...]
In the Pipe, Five By Five
Because of the sequential nature of 3D graphics rendering, and because there are so many calculations to be done and volumes of data to be handled, the entire process is broken down into component steps, sometimes called stages. These stages are serialized into the aforementioned 3D graphics pipeline.The huge amount of work involved in creating [...]
ExtremeTech 3D Pipeline Tutorial
From the movie special effects that captivate us, to medical imaging to games and beyond, the impact that 3D graphics have made is nothing short of revolutionary. This technology, which took consumer PCs by storm about five years ago, has its roots in academia, and in the military. In fact, in some sense, the 3D [...]
