Three-dimensional computer graphics architecture

Three-dimensional (3D) computer graphics hardware has emerged as an integral part of mainstream desktop PC systems. The aim of this paper is to describe the 3D graphics architecture at a level accessible to the general computational science community. We start with the generic 3D graphics rendering algorithm, the computational requirements of each of its steps, and the basic architectural features of 3D graphics processors. Then we survey the architectural features that have been implemented in or proposed for state-of-the-art graphics processors at the processor and system levels to enable faster and higherquality 3D graphics rendering. Finally, we describe a taxonomy of parallel 3D rendering algorithms that accelerate the performance of 3D graphics using parallel processing.