Though the technical details of rendering methods vary, the general challenges to overcome in producing a 2D image from a 3D representation stored in a scene file are outlined as the graphics pipeline along a rendering device, such as a GPU.

** Graphics pipeline, the method of rasterization-based rendering as supported by graphics hardware

The process of rasterising 3D models onto a 2D plane for display on a computer screen is often carried out by fixed function hardware within the graphics pipeline.

The trend is towards full programmability of the graphics pipeline.

* Graphics pipeline for rasterisation in commodity graphics hardware

Direct3D uses hardware acceleration if it is available on the graphics card, allowing for hardware acceleration of the entire 3D rendering pipeline or even only partial acceleration.

Direct3D 7. 0 also augmented DirectX support for multitexturing hardware, and represents the pinnacle of fixed-function multitexture pipeline features: although powerful, it was so complicated to program that a new programming model was needed to expose the shading capabilities of graphics hardware.

* Shader model 4. 0 enhances the programmability of the graphics pipeline.

Also, Nintendo's Wii console, though debuting in the same generation as the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, requires a smaller development budget, as innovation on the Wii is centered around the use of the Wii Remote and not around the graphics pipeline.

GDI + adds anti-aliased 2D graphics, floating point coordinates, gradient shading, more complex path management, intrinsic support for modern graphics-file formats like JPEG and PNG, and support for composition of affine transformations in the 2D view pipeline.

With real-time 3D graphics technology continually advancing, the release of DirectX 9. 0 brought further refinement of programmable pipeline technology with the arrival of Shader Model 2. 0.

This concept turns the massive computational power of a modern graphics accelerator's shader pipeline into general-purpose computing power, as opposed to being hard wired solely to do graphical operations.

Moreover, the complexity of the emerging graphics pipeline ( display adapter -> display adapter driver -> 3D graphics API -> application ) led to a great number of incompatibilities, leading to unstable, underperforming, or simply inoperative software.

Regardless of the number of filters, Core Image assembles the code for this instruction pipeline with a just-in-time compiler, which is executed by either the CPU or graphics card's GPU, whichever can perform the calculation faster.

Geometric manipulation of modeling primitives, such as that performed by a geometry pipeline, is the first stage in computer graphics systems which perform image generation based on geometric models.

Hardware implementations of the geometry pipeline were introduced in the early Evans & Sutherland Picture System, but perhaps received broader recognition when later applied in the broad range of graphics systems products introduced by Silicon Graphics ( SGI ).

Shaders are used to program the graphics processing unit ( GPU ) programmable rendering pipeline, which has mostly superseded the fixed-function pipeline that allowed only common geometry transformation and pixel-shading functions ; with shaders, customized effects can be used.

This type of shader can generate new graphics primitives, such as points, lines, and triangles, from those primitives that were sent to the beginning of the graphics pipeline.

Level of detail techniques increases the efficiency of rendering by decreasing the workload on graphics pipeline stages, usually vertex transformations.

In 3D computer graphics, the terms graphics pipeline or rendering pipeline most commonly refers to the current state of the art method of rasterization-based rendering as supported by commodity graphics hardware.

The albedo is an important concept in climatology and astronomy, as well as in calculating reflectivity of surfaces in LEED sustainable rating systems for buildings, computer graphics and computer vision.

In the field of computer graphics, an anisotropic surface will change in appearance as it is rotated about its geometric normal, as is the case with velvet.

ReTargetable Graphics is a device driver API mainly used by 3rd party graphics hardware to interface with AmigaOS via a set of libraries.

In computer graphics, alpha compositing is the process of combining an image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency.

Alpha blending is a convex combination of two colors allowing for transparency effects in computer graphics.

The disadvantage to this system is that while the SAA5050 would expect to be repeatedly fed the same 40 bytes of data for every display scanline of each character row, the ULA would read a different set of 40 bytes for every display scanline in order to produce a full graphics display.

The same counter is used in both the continuous and non-continuous graphics modes and switching modes mid-frame does not cause any adjustment to the counter.

By using the palette to mask the top area of the display and taking care about when it changes mode it can shift the continuous graphics at the bottom of the display down in two pixel increments because the internal display counter is not incremented on blank scanlines during non-continuous graphics modes.

It is this latter version, which has some syntax differences from the first as well as support for the Apple II high-resolution graphics modes, that most people mean by the term " Applesoft.

The Accelerated Graphics Port ( often shortened to AGP ) is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a video card to a computer's motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics.

This is done by adding eight extra 8-bit buses which allow the graphics controller to issue new AGP requests and commands at the same time with other AGP data flowing via the main 32 address / data ( AD ) lines.

In addition, to load a texture, a PCI graphics card must copy it from the system's RAM into the card's framebuffer, whereas an AGP card is capable of reading textures directly from system RAM using the graphics address remapping table, which reapportions main memory as needed for texture storage, allowing the graphics card to access them directly.

The graphics are generated by a custom graphics chip called MARIA which is very different from other second and third generation consoles, and made it more difficult for game programmers to make the transition.

As such, the 7800 does not include additional hardware for generating sound as it does with graphics and the sound hardware is considered the weakest part of the system.

The most substantial difference, however, is a graphics architecture which differs markedly from either the Atari 2600 VCS or Atari ’ s 8-bit line of computers.

When in “ 7800 ” mode ( signified by the appearance of the full screen Atari logo ), the graphics are generated entirely by the MARIA graphics processing unit, all system RAM is available and game data is accessed in larger 48K blocks.

The system is also notable for its forward-looking features, advanced graphics, and ambidextrous layout.

The ' TAS ' series would be the original cast's last episodic portrayal of the characters until the " cartoon like " graphics of the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary computer game in 1992, as well as its sequel Star Trek: Judgment Rites in 1993, both of which would appear after the cast's last movie together in 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

( ISC also retargeted it to the Texas Instruments TMS34010 graphics coprocessor used in its last workstation.

VGA was the last graphical standard introduced by IBM that the majority of PC clone manufacturers conformed to, making it today () the lowest common denominator that almost all post-1990 PC graphics hardware can be expected to implement down to the lowest level of hardware registers, obviating the need for any device-specific firmware or driver software ( while all VGA compatible hardware has on-board firmware as well, the only standardized API of that firmware was created for 16-bit real mode and can't easily be used by newer 32-or 64-bit operating systems ).

Numerous graphics companies are located in the region, such as Brepols, Group Joos, Proost International Book Production, Van Genechten Packaging, and last but not least Cartamundi, the world market leader of the playing card industry.

The last batch to be created was in 1997, in which the cake became more abstract with both more advanced computer graphics used and more live action models and sequences.

In this mode, color 0 in the palette is replaced by the last non-zero color pixel displayed on the scan line ( to the left ), allowing fast solid-fill graphics ( drawn with only the outlines ).

These last 500 Aleros featured custom graphics inspired by vintage Oldsmobile logos, dark cherry metallic paint, and a plate featuring the car's number out of 500.

Revelation would be the last Myst game that used prerendered graphics or full motion video.

The last SCI0 game, Jones in the Fast Lane, already used the graphics engine from SCI1 and thus was available in a 256 color version.

The last NES game released commercially in the United States for several years, this three-in-one cartridge featured the title game ( a graphics hack of Color Dreams's old Menace Beach ), Fish Fall ( a previously-unreleased Tetris-style puzzle game ), and a karaoke program featuring a Christian pop song, " The Ride ," by 4Him.

It was announced in June 2008 that development would begin again, and the several subsequent releases have regained much of the functionality of the last 2000 software release, and have included some modernised features and graphics.

In 1999, Williams made one last attempt to revitalize pinball sales with its Pinball 2000 machines that integrated pinball with computer graphics on embedded raster-scan displays.

The Voodoo 5 was the last and most powerful graphics card line that 3dfx Interactive released.

There were new graphics in between locations, so instead of the screen showing an aerial shot of Ireland, and Streak coming up from the last location visited to fly down to the next, he is shown travelling at speed across long stretches of land.

The video clip of Robert Palmer with the original graphics on, shown on the last episode, was taken from the 4th episode, rather than the first, as revealed by the date shown in the H. U. D.

More notably, Sensible Software made several games for distribution with Amiga Power, like Sensible Massacre ( uses Sensible Soccer graphics, where the player throws grenades at Dutch players, following the loss of England against the Dutch in the USA ' 94 qualifiers ) or Sensible Train Spotting ( related to the hobby ), the last game developed by the company for the Commodore Amiga.

Graphical output is handled by X11, PostScript, SVG, or z-buffer terminals, the last one allowing output graphics ( plots ) to be saved in raster graphics formats.

The Star XL was a major leap over the 4000 with advanced technical capabilities such as modernized graphics ( with Akzidenz-Grotesk as the main typeface ), narrated current conditions and extended forecast products, and new weather icons that would last the channel for the next eight years from its launch.

One of the last high-end games using only a software renderer was Outcast, which featured advanced voxel technology but also texture filtering and bumpmapping as found on graphics hardware.

Also, for one of the last of the 8-bit games it did not demonstrate how far the system had come in terms of graphics or sound.

Unlike conventional roguelikes, SAIS features full graphics, music and sound, and game sessions typically last from 3 to 20 minutes, hence the game's tagline " Explore the galaxy in 20 minutes or less!

Before the last commercial break, graphics highlighted the ten most active stocks the previous day on the New York Stock Exchange.