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El desarrollo de las gráficas por computadora comenzó a los inicios los años 50 cuando proyectos como SAGE y Whirlwind desarrollaron el tubo de rayos catódico el cual se utilizaba para mostrar gráficas, se utilizaba una pluma de luz como dispositivo de entrada para escribir en un pizarrón.

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William Higinbotham desarrolló el primer videojuego con gráficas interactivas, Tennis for two , para entretener a los visitantes del Laboratorio Nacional de Brookhaven.

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El laboratorio Lincoln del MIT desarrolló la computadora TX2, además de un software para dibujar figuras básicas en la pantalla utilizando una pluma de luz y guardándolas para poder utilizarlas después.

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E.E. Zajac de Bell Telephone Laboratory creó una animación y gráficas para mostrar el movimiento de los satélites y el cambio de altitudes alrededor de la órbita de la tierra.

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IBM desarrolló la primer computadora gráfica de para uso comercial, la IBM 2250, la cual era un sistema de visualización de gráficos vectoriales para System/360; el modelo IV adjunto al IBM 1130.

Incluía un monitor de 21 pulgadas con resolución de 1024x1024, un procesador de lista de visualización dedicado, un lápiz óptico y un teclado.

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Historia de las gráficas por computadora - 1950 al 2010

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Historia de las gráficas por computadora - 1950 al 2010

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https://www.thecrazyprogrammer.com/2021/07/history-of-computer-graphics.html

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In this article, we will study how the present graphics have evolved over time, thus helping us interact with such great interfaces and enriching our user experience.

1950s

So, the development of computer graphics started in the early 1950s, when projects like Whirlwind and Sage developed the Cathode Ray Tube which was used to display visual graphics and a light pen was used as an input device to write on the board. In 1895, the first video game - Tennis for two with interactive graphics was developed by William Higinbotham to entertain the visitors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Later on, many advancements were done in the same decade like the development of a TX2 computer along with sketchpad software which helped to draw basic shapes on the screen using a light pen and saving them for future use.

1960s

The term 'Computer Graphics' was coined by William Fetter in 1960. In 1963, E.E. Zajac, of the Bell Telephone Laboratory created a film using animations and graphics which could show the movement of satellites and their change in altitudes around the orbit of the Earth. In the late 1960s, IBM also started its development in this field of computer graphics. IBM released the first graphic computer for commercial use - IBM 2250. In 1966, Ralph Baer developed a simple video game in which one could move points of light on a screen. In 1966, Ivan Sutherland invented the first head-mounted display which contained two separate wireframe images and gave a 3D effect.

1970s

The 1970s saw a major change in computer graphics that enabled practical computer graphics technology like the MOS LSI technology. Edwin Catmull created an animation of his hand opening and closing. Along with him, his classmate, Fred Parke created an animation of his wife's face. John Warnock, on of the earlier pioneers, founded Adobe Systems, which, we all know is today one of the most used software for editing and photoshop. This gave a major breakthrough in the field of computer graphics. In 1977, a major advancement in 3D computer graphics was created to draw a 3D representation of an object on the screen, which acted as a foundation for most future developments. Later on, many modern video games were developed like the 2D video game arcade, Pong, Speed game, Gunfight, Space Invaders, etc.

1980s

With such developments taking place, modernization and commercialization started in the 1980s. In the early 1980s, high-resolution computer graphics and personal computer systems began to revolutionize computer graphics. Many CPU microprocessors and microcontrollers were developed to give birth to many Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) chips. In 1982, Japan's Osaka University developed a supercomputer that used 257 Zilog Z8001 microprocessors to display realistic 3D graphics. The 1980s was called the golden era for videos games. Many companies like Atari, Nintendo, and Sega presented computer graphics with a whole new interface to the audience. Companies like Apple, Macs, and Amiga, allowed users to program their own games. Real-time advancements were made in 3D graphics in arcade games. In this decade, the use of computer graphics was extended to many industries like the automobile industries, vehicle designing, vehicle simulation, chemistry, etc.

1990s

The 1990s was a period where 3D computer graphics flourished and were developed on a mass scale. In this period, 3D models became popular in gaming, multimedia, and animations. In the early 1990s, the first computer graphic TV series - La Vie Des Betes was released in France. In 1995, Pixar released its first serious commercial animated film - Toy Story, which was a huge success, both commercially and in the field of computer graphics too. In the same decade, many 3D games like racing games, first-person shooter games, fighting games like Virtual Fighter, Tekken, and one of the most famous SuperMario began to lure the audience with its interface and gaming experience. Since these advancements, computer graphics continued to be more realistic and kept developing and expanded their use in various fields.

2000s

In the 1990s, video games and cinema became the mainstream of computer graphics. CGI was used for television advertisements widely in the late 1990s and 2000s, and it attracted a large chunk of audience. The wide popularity of computer graphics made 3D graphics a standard feature to be used in most fields. Many improvements were done and computer graphics used in films and videos games were made more realistic to attract the audience on a large scale. Many cartoon films like the Ice Age, Madagascar, Finding Nemo became one of the most favorites of the audience and dominated the box office. Many computer-generated feature films were produced like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Polar Express, and Star Wars which drew a lot of attention at that point in time.

Video games too saw a major upgrade with the release of Sony Playstation 2 and 3, Microsoft Xbox attracting the audience. Many series of video games like Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, Bio Shock, Kingdom Hearts, Mirror's Edge, and many other grew the video game industry and continued to impress the masses.

2010s

In the 2010s, CGI expanded its use and provided graphics in real-time at ultra-high-resolution modes in 4K. Most of the animated movies are CGI now and involve animated pictures and 3D cartoons. In video games, Microsoft Xbox, and Sony PlayStation 4 began to dominate the 3D world and are one of the most popular among users in the present time too.

Since then, the world of computer graphics has kept developing and received a lot of praise from the audience for enriching its experience and providing a great platform to interact with high-resolution computer graphics. So, this is all about the history of computer graphics.

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History of Computer Graphics - 1950s to 2010s

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In this article, we will study how the present graphics have evolved over time, thus helping us interact with such great interfaces and enriching our user experience.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TX-2

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The MIT Lincoln Laboratory TX-2 computer was the successor to the Lincoln TX-0 and was known for its role in advancing both artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Wesley A. Clark was the chief architect of the TX-2.

The TX-2 was a transistor-based computer using the then-huge amount of 64 K 36-bit words of magnetic-core memory. The TX-2 became operational in 1958. Because of its powerful capabilities, Ivan Sutherland's revolutionary Sketchpad program was developed for and ran on the TX-2. One of its key features was the ability to directly interact with the computer through a graphical display.

The compiler was developed by Lawrence Roberts while he was studying at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Digital Equipment Corporation was a spin-off of the TX-0 and TX-2 projects. The TX-2 Tape System was a block addressable 1/2" tape developed for the TX-2 by Tom Stockebrand which evolved into LINCtape and DECtape.

Dr. Leonard Kleinrock developed the mathematical theory of packet networks which he successfully simulated on the TX-2 computer at Lincoln Lab.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The MIT Lincoln Laboratory TX-2 computer was the successor to the Lincoln TX-0 and was known for its role in advancing both artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Wesley A. Clark was the chief architect of the TX-2.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2250

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Also known as

IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit

Manufacturer
IBM

Type

vector graphics display system

Release date

1964; 60 years ago [1]

Introductory price

around US$280,000 (equivalent to $2,109,957 in 2022)[2]

Input

light pen, keyboard, function keypad

The IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit was a vector graphics display system by IBM for the System/360; the Model IV attached to the IBM 1130.

The IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit was announced with System/360 in 1964. A complete 2250 III system with controller cost around $280,000 in 1970, though up to 4 displays could share a single controller, reducing the cost per display by up to 40%.

A display list of line segments ( vectors) on a 1024 by 1024 grid was stored in computer's memory or an optional buffer on the 2250 and repainted on the 2250's CRT up to 40 times per second. The computer altered the display by changing the display list.

Characters were built of line segments specified by display list subroutines. Thus any character set or font could be displayed, although fonts were generally extremely simplified for performance reasons. An optional character-generator feature on all models provided predefined fonts of 63 characters to simplify display of alphanumeric information.

The 2250 was housed in a desk with an alphanumeric ( QWERTY) keyboard and a separate programmed function keyboard which had keys, indicator lights and switches. A plastic overlay label could be placed over the function keyboard. Punches on the top edge of the overlay could be sensed by the computer so the keys, lights and switches could be reprogrammed simply by changing overlays. The 2250s CRT measured 21" diagonal, but the useful display area was 12 inch by 12 inch. A light pen was provided as a pointing device, serving the function of the modern computer mouse.

An IBM 2285 Display Copier could be attached to the 2250 to provide 8½ by 11 inch hard copy of the display contents under operator control.

An IBM 2280 Film Recorder or IBM 2282 Film Recorder/Scanner could be attached to a 2840 control unit providing for output or input/output to photographic negative.

There were four models of 2250:

Model 1 - attached directly to a System/360 via a selector or multiplexor channel.

Model 2 - attached via a 2840-1 control unit. A 2840 could attach up to four 2250s and provided buffering and a character generator.

Model 3 - attached via a 2840-2 control unit.

Model 4 - attached to an IBM 1130 minicomputer via the storage access channel (SAC). The 1130 could run either as a standalone processor or as a front-end processor connected to a remote System/360.

A number of plug compatible manufacturers sold competitors to the 2250, including Adage, Evans & Sutherland, Information Displays Inc., Lundy, Sanders, Spectragraphics, and Vector General.

In 1977 IBM introduced the 3250 Display System (manufactured by Sanders Associates) as an upgrade to the 2250.

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Also known as IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit Manufacturer IBM Type vector graphics display system Release date 1964; 60 years ago [1] Introductory price around US$280,000 (equivalent to $2,109,957 in 2022)[2] Input light pen, keyboard, function keypad The IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit was a vector graphics display system by IBM for the System/360; the Model IV attached to the IBM 1130.

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http://ibm1130.org/hw/2250/

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The 2250 graphical display unit included a 21-inch monitor with 1024x1024 resolution, a dedicated display-list processor, a light pen, and a keyboard. With this device, the 1130 could serve as a standalone graphics workstation, and as a slave graphics terminal for the System/360. IBM developed its earliest CAD and schematic entry/simulation software for this combination.

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The 2250 graphical display unit included a 21-inch monitor with 1024x1024 resolution, a dedicated display-list processor, a light pen, and a keyboard. With this device, the 1130 could serve as a standalone graphics workstation, and as a slave graphics terminal for the System/360. IBM developed its earliest CAD and schematic entry/simulation software for this combination.

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Ralph Baer comenzó a investigar cómo jugar videojuegos en una televisión. Entre los años 1967 y 1969 él y sus colegas Bill Harrison y Bill Rusch crearon distintas unidades de prueba. El resultado fue "Brown Box", un prototipo para el primer sistema de videojuego multijugador y multiprograma.

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El padre de los videojuegos: prototipos y juegos electrónicos de Ralph Baer 

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El padre de los videojuegos: prototipos y juegos electrónicos de Ralph Baer 

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https://www.si.edu/spotlight/the-father-of-the-video-game-the-ralph-baer-prototypes-and-electronic-games

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By the 1960s, millions of Americans had invested in televisions for their homes, and it soon became clear that this technology could be used for more that passively watching television shows. In 1966, while working for Sanders Associates Inc., engineer Ralph Baer began to investigate how to play games on a television. Between 1967 and 1969, he and colleagues Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch created several video game test units. This result was the "Brown Box," a prototype for the first multiplayer, multiprogram video game system. Sanders licensed the system to Magnavox. In 1972, Magnavox released the design as the Magnavox Odyssey, paving the way for all video game systems that followed.

Ralph Baer donated his video game test units, production models, notes, and schematics to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2006. His papers are kept in the Museum's Archives Center. In 2014, the Museum collected his workshop to become the landmark object for its Innovation Wing.

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The Father of the Video Game: The Ralph Baer Prototypes and Electronic Games | Smithsonian Institution

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By the 1960s, millions of Americans had invested in televisions for their homes, and it soon became clear that this technology could be used for more that passively watching television shows.... Learn more

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Ivan Sutherland y sus colegas comenzaron los primeros experimentos con pantallas montadas en la cabeza en el laboratorio Lincoln del MIT, a partir 1966.

En 1968 se creó The Sword of Damocles, uno de los primeros sistemas de seguimiento y visualización montados en la cabeza de realidad virtual (VR). Es ampliamente considerado como el primer sistema HMD de realidad aumentada.

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The Sword of Damocles (Realidad virtual)

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The Sword of Damocles (Realidad virtual)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Damocles_(virtual_reality)

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The Sword of Damocles (virtual reality) - Wikipedia

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While according to Ivan Sutherland, the The Sword of Damocles actually was the name for the mechanical tracking system and not the actual HMD, which was just called "the head-mounted display system", it is widely considered to be the first augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD) system, although Morton Heilig had already created a similar apparatus (known as "Stereoscopic-Television Apparatus for Individual Use" or "Telesphere Mask") earlier, which got patented in 1960.

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Edwin Catmull creó una animación de 1 minuto de su mano izquierda.

Creó un modelo de su mano, se digitalizó y animó en una animación 3D con un programa que Catmull escribió.

Esta corta secuencia fue tomada por un productor de Hollywood e incorporada en la pelicula Futureworld en 1976, la cual fue la primer película en usar gráficos en 3D por computadora.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=58&v=wdedV81UQ5k&feature=youtu.be

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Computer_Animated_Hand

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Catmull

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Edwin Earl Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist and animator who served as the co-founder of Pixar and the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, including the 2019 ACM Turing Award.

Edwin Catmull was born on March 31, 1945, in Parkersburg, West Virginia. His family later moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where his father first served as principal of Granite High School and then of Taylorsville High School. Born in a Mormon family, Catmull was the eldest of five brothers and, as a young man, served as a missionary in the New York City area of ​the 1960s.

Early in his life, Catmull found inspiration in Disney movies, including and , and wanted to be an animator; however, after finishing high school, he had no idea how to get there as there were no animation schools around that time. Because he also liked math and physics, he chose a scientific career instead. He also made animation using flip-books. Catmull graduated in 1969, with a B.S. in physics and computer science from the University of Utah. Initially interested in designing programming languages, Catmull encountered Ivan Sutherland, who had designed the computer drawing program Sketchpad, and changed[vague ] his interest to digital imaging. As a student of Sutherland, he was part of the university's DARPA program, sharing classes with James H. Clark, John Warnock and Alan Kay.

From that point, his main goal and ambition were to make digitally realistic films. During his time at the university, he made two new fundamental computer-graphics discoveries: texture mapping and bicubic patches; and invented algorithms for spatial anti-aliasing and refining subdivision surfaces. Catmull says the idea for subdivision surfaces came from mathematical structures in his mind when he applied B-splines to non-four sided objects. He also independently discovered Z-buffering, which had been described eight months before by Wolfgang Straßer in his PhD thesis.

In 1972, Catmull made his earliest contribution to the film industry: a one-minute animated version of his left hand, titled A Computer Animated Hand, created with Fred Parke at the University of Utah. This short sequence was eventually picked up by a Hollywood producer and incorporated in the 1976 film Futureworld, which was the first film to use 3D computer graphics and a science-fiction sequel to the 1973 film , itself being the first to use a pixelated image generated by a computer. A Computer Animated Hand was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in December 2011.

In 1974, Catmull earned his doctorate in computer science, and was hired by a company called Applicon. By November of that year, he had been contacted by Alexander Schure, the founder of the New York Institute of Technology, who offered him the position as the director of the institute's new Computer Graphics Lab. In that position, in 1977, he invented Tween, software for 2D animation that automatically produced frames of motion in between two frames.

However, Catmull's team lacked the ability to tell a story effectively via film, harming the effort to produce a motion picture via a computer. Catmull and his partner, Alvy Ray Smith, attempted to reach out to studios to alleviate this issue, but were generally unsuccessful until they attracted the attention of George Lucas at Lucasfilm.

Lucas approached Catmull in 1979 and asked him to lead a group to bring computer graphics, video editing, and digital audio into the entertainment field. Lucas had already made a deal with a computer company called Triple-I, and asked them to create a digital model of an X-wing fighter from , which they did. In 1979, Catmull became the Vice President at Industrial Light & Magic computer graphics division at Lucasfilm.

In 1986, Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilm's digital division and founded Pixar, where Catmull would work. Pixar would be acquired by Disney in 2006.

In June 2007, Catmull and long-time Pixar digital animator and director John Lasseter were given control of Disneytoon Studios, a division of Disney Animation housed in a separate facility in Glendale. As president and chief creative officer, respectively, they have supervised three separate studios for Disney, each with its own production pipeline: Pixar, Disney Animation, and Disneytoon. While Disney Animation and Disneytoon are located in the Los Angeles area, Pixar is located over 350 miles (563 kilometers) northwest in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Catmull and Lasseter both live. Accordingly, they appointed a general manager for each studio to handle day-to-day affairs on their behalf, then began regularly commuting each week to both Pixar and Disney Animation and spending at least two days per week (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays) at Disney Animation.

While at Pixar, Catmull was implicated in the High-Tech Employee Antitrust scandal, in which Bay Area technology companies allegedly agreed, among other things, not to cold-call recruit from one another. Catmull defended his actions in a deposition, saying: "While I have responsibility for the payroll, I have responsibility for the long term also." Disney and its subsidiaries, including Pixar, ultimately paid $100 million in settlement compensation.

In November 2014, the general managers of Disney Animation and Pixar were both promoted to president, but both continued to report to Catmull, who retained the title of president of Walt Disney and Pixar. On October 23, 2018, Catmull announced his plans to retire from Pixar and Disney Animation, staying on as an adviser through July 2019.

In March 2022, Thatgamecompany announced the addition of Catmull as principal adviser on creative culture and strategic growth.

As of 2006, Catmull lives in Marin County, California, with his wife, Susan Anderson, and their three children.

Catmull has an inability to form mental imagery within his head, a condition known as aphantasia.

In 1993, Catmull received his first Academy Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "for the development of PhotoRealistic RenderMan software which produces images used in motion pictures from 3D computer descriptions of shape and appearance". He shared this award with Tom Porter. In 1995, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. Again in 1996, he received an Academy Scientific and Technical Award "for pioneering inventions in Digital Image Compositing".

In 2000, Catmull was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for leadership in the creation of digital imagery, leading to the introduction of fully synthetic visual effects and motion pictures.

In 2001, he received an Oscar "for significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar's RenderMan". In 2006, he was awarded the IEEE John von Neumann All-Medal Crown Of Trophies for pioneering contributions to the field of computer graphics in modeling, animation and rendering. At the 81st Academy Awards (2008, presented in February 2009), Catmull was awarded the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, which honors "an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry".

In 2013, the Computer History Museum named him a Museum Fellow "for his pioneering work in computer graphics, animation and filmmaking".

His book Creativity, Inc. was shortlisted for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award (2014), and was a selection for Mark Zuckerberg book club in March 2015.

Catmull shared the 2019 Turing Award with Pat Hanrahan for their pioneering work on computer-generated imagery.

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Edwin Earl Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist and animator who served as the co-founder of Pixar and the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, including the 2019 ACM Turing Award.

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Edwin Catmull creó el Z buffer, o buffer de profundidad que se utiliza para representar la información de profundidad de objetos en un espacio 3D desde una persperctiva particular. Z buffering se describió por primera vez por Wolfgang Straßer en la tésis de su doctorado en algoritmos rápidos para renderizar objetos ocluidos.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-buffering

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Z-buffer data

A depth buffer, also known as a z-buffer, is a type of data buffer used in computer graphics to represent depth information of objects in 3D space from a particular perspective. Depth buffers are an aid to rendering a scene to ensure that the correct polygons properly occlude other polygons. Z-buffering was first described in 1974 by Wolfgang Straßer in his PhD thesis on fast algorithms for rendering occluded objects. A similar solution to determining overlapping polygons is the painter's algorithm, which is capable of handling non-opaque scene elements, though at the cost of efficiency and incorrect results.

In a 3D-rendering pipeline, when an object is projected on the screen, the depth (z-value) of a generated fragment in the projected screen image is compared to the value already stored in the buffer ( depth test), and replaces it if the new value is closer. It works in tandem with the rasterizer, which computes the colored values. The fragment output by the rasterizer is saved if it is not overlapped by another fragment.

When viewing an image containing partially or fully overlapping opaque objects or surfaces, it is not possible to fully see those objects that are farthest away from the viewer and behind other objects (i.e., some surfaces are hidden behind others). If there were no mechanism for managing overlapping surfaces, surfaces would render on top of each other, not caring if they are meant to be behind other objects. The identification and removal of these surfaces are called the hidden-surface problem. To check for overlap, the computer calculates the z-value of a pixel corresponding to the first object and compares it with the z-value at the same pixel location in the z-buffer. If the calculated z-value is smaller than the z-value already in the z-buffer (i.e., the new pixel is closer), then the current z-value in the z-buffer is replaced with the calculated value. This is repeated for all objects and surfaces in the scene (often in parallel). In the end, the z-buffer will allow correct reproduction of the usual depth perception: a close object hides one further away. This is called z-culling.

The z-buffer has the same internal data structure as an image, namely a 2D-array, with the only difference being that it stores a single value for each screen pixel instead of color images that use 3 values to create color. This makes the z-buffer appear black-and-white because it is not storing color information. The buffer has the same dimensions as the screen buffer for consistency.

Primary visibility tests (such as back-face culling) and secondary visibility tests (such as overlap checks and screen clipping) are usually performed on objects' polygons in order to skip specific polygons that are unnecessary to render. Z-buffer, by comparison, is comparatively expensive, so performing primary and secondary visibility tests relieve the z-buffer of some duty.

The granularity of a z-buffer has a great influence on the scene quality: the traditional 16-bit z-buffer can result in artifacts (called " z-fighting" or stitching) when two objects are very close to each other. A more modern 24-bit or 32-bit z-buffer behaves much better, although the problem cannot be eliminated without additional algorithms. An 8-bit z-buffer is almost never used since it has too little precision.

The Z-buffer is a technology used in almost all contemporary computers, laptops, and mobile phones for performing 3D computer graphics. The primary use now is for video games, which require fast and accurate processing of 3D scenes. The Z-buffer is implemented in hardware within consumer graphics cards. The Z-buffer is also used (implemented as software as opposed to hardware) for producing computer-generated special effects for films.[citation needed ]

Furthermore, Z-buffer data obtained from rendering a surface from a light's point-of-view permits the creation of shadows by the shadow mapping technique.

Even with small enough granularity, quality problems may arise when precision in the z-buffer's distance values are not spread evenly over distance. Nearer values are much more precise (and hence can display closer objects better) than values that are farther away. Generally, this is desirable, but sometimes it will cause artifacts to appear as objects become more distant. A variation on z-buffering which results in more evenly distributed precision is called w-buffering (see below).

At the start of a new scene, the z-buffer must be cleared to a defined value, usually 1.0, because this value is the upper limit (on a scale of 0 to 1) of depth, meaning that no object is present at this point through the viewing frustum.

The invention of the z-buffer concept is most often attributed to Edwin Catmull, although Wolfgang Straßer described this idea in his 1974 Ph.D. thesis months before Catmull's invention.

On more recent PC graphics cards (1999-2005), z-buffer management uses a significant chunk of the available memory bandwidth. Various methods have been employed to reduce the performance cost of z-buffering, such as lossless compression (computer resources to compress/decompress are cheaper than bandwidth) and ultra-fast hardware z-clear that makes obsolete the "one frame positive, one frame negative" trick (skipping inter-frame clear altogether using signed numbers to cleverly check depths).

Some games, notably several games later in the N64's life cycle, decided to either minimize Z buffering (for example, rendering the background first without z buffering and only using Z buffering for the foreground objects) or to omit it entirely, to reduce memory bandwidth requirements and memory requirements respectively. Super Smash Bros. and F-Zero X are two N64 games that minimized Z buffering to increase framerates. Several Factor 5 games also minimized or omitted Z buffering. On the N64 Z Buffering can consume up to 4x as much bandwidth as opposed to not using Z buffering.

Mechwarrior 2 on PC supported resolutions up to 800x600 on the original 4 MB 3DFX Voodoo due to not using Z Buffering.

In rendering, z-culling is early pixel elimination based on depth, a method that provides an increase in performance when rendering of hidden surfaces is costly. It is a direct consequence of z-buffering, where the depth of each pixel candidate is compared to the depth of the existing geometry behind which it might be hidden.

When using a z-buffer, a pixel can be culled (discarded) as soon as its depth is known, which makes it possible to skip the entire process of lighting and texturing a pixel that would not be visible anyway. Also, time-consuming pixel shaders will generally not be executed for the culled pixels. This makes z-culling a good optimization candidate in situations where fillrate, lighting, texturing, or pixel shaders are the main bottlenecks.

While z-buffering allows the geometry to be unsorted, sorting polygons by increasing depth (thus using a reverse painter's algorithm) allows each screen pixel to be rendered fewer times. This can increase performance in fillrate-limited scenes with large amounts of overdraw, but if not combined with z-buffering it suffers from severe problems such as:

polygons might occlude one another in a cycle (e.g.: triangle A occludes B, B occludes C, C occludes A), and

there is no canonical "closest" point on a triangle (e.g.: no matter whether one sorts triangles by their centroid or closest point or furthest point, one can always find two triangles A and B such that A is "closer" but in reality B should be drawn first).

As such, a reverse painter's algorithm cannot be used as an alternative to Z-culling (without strenuous re-engineering), except as an optimization to Z-culling. For example, an optimization might be to keep polygons sorted according to x/y-location and z-depth to provide bounds, in an effort to quickly determine if two polygons might possibly have an occlusion interaction.

The range of depth values in camera space to be rendered is often defined between a and value of .

After a perspective transformation, the new value of , or , is defined by:

After an orthographic projection, the new value of , or , is defined by:

where is the old value of in camera space, and is sometimes called or .

The resulting values of are normalized between the values of -1 and 1, where the plane is at -1 and the plane is at 1. Values outside of this range correspond to points which are not in the viewing frustum, and shouldn't be rendered.

Fixed-point representation

Typically, these values are stored in the z-buffer of the hardware graphics accelerator in fixed point format. First they are normalized to a more common range which is [0, 1] by substituting the appropriate conversion into the previous formula:

Simplifying:

Second, the above formula is multiplied by where d is the depth of the z-buffer (usually 16, 24 or 32 bits) and rounding the result to an integer:[5]

This formula can be inverted and derived in order to calculate the z-buffer resolution (the 'granularity' mentioned earlier). The inverse of the above :

where

The z-buffer resolution in terms of camera space would be the incremental value resulted from the smallest change in the integer stored in the z-buffer, which is +1 or -1. Therefore, this resolution can be calculated from the derivative of as a function of :

Expressing it back in camera space terms, by substituting by the above :

This shows that the values of are grouped much more densely near the plane, and much more sparsely farther away, resulting in better precision closer to the camera. The smaller is, the less precision there is far away-having the plane set too closely is a common cause of undesirable rendering artifacts in more distant objects.[6]

To implement a z-buffer, the values of are linearly interpolated across screen space between the vertices of the current polygon, and these intermediate values are generally stored in the z-buffer in fixed point format.

To implement a w-buffer,[7] the old values of in camera space, or , are stored in the buffer, generally in floating point format. However, these values cannot be linearly interpolated across screen space from the vertices-they usually have to be inverted, interpolated, and then inverted again. The resulting values of , as opposed to , are spaced evenly between and . There are implementations of the w-buffer that avoid the inversions altogether.

Whether a z-buffer or w-buffer results in a better image depends on the application.

The following pseudocode demonstrates the process of z-buffering:

// First of all, initialize the depth of each pixel.
d(i, j) = infinite // Max length

// Initialize the color value for each pixel to the background color
c(i, j) = background color

// For each polygon, do the following steps :
for (each pixel in polygon's projection)
{
    // Find depth i.e, z of polygon
    //   at (x, y) corresponding to pixel (i, j)
    if (z < d(i, j))
    {
        d(i, j) = z;
        c(i, j) = color;
    }
}

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A depth buffer, also known as a z-buffer, is a type of data buffer used in computer graphics to represent depth information of objects in 3D space from a particular perspective. Depth buffers are an aid to rendering a scene to ensure that the correct polygons properly occlude other polygons.

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Frank Crow introduce la primer técnica de anti-aliasing.

En los gráficos por computadora, el anti-aliasing mejora la apariencia de los bordes de los polígonos "irregulares" o "dentados", de modo que se suavizan en la pantalla. Sin embargo, genera un costo de rendimiento para la tarjeta gráfica y utiliza más memoria de video. El nivel de suavizado determina qué tan suaves son los bordes del polígono (y cuánta memoria de video consume).

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John Warnock y Charles Geschke desarrollaron un lenguaje de programación llamado PostScript especialmente diseñado para describir la posición, forma y tamaño precisos de los objetos en una página generada por computadora.

Describía objetos como letras y gráficos en términos matemáticos; cualquier dispositivo capaz de interpretar el idioma podría generar una representación de la página en cualquier resolución que admita el dispositivo.

Gracias a esto, fundaron Adobe Systems Incorporated.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_anti-aliasing

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Línea del tiempo de gráficas por computadora

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Línea del tiempo de gráficas por computadora

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https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/graphicshistory/back-matter/cg-historical-timeline/

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CG Historical Timeline – Computer Graphics and Computer Animation: A Retrospective Overview

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This timeline depicts key events in the evolution of the CGI discipline.

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/Adobe-Systems-Incorporated

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Table of Contents

Adobe Inc., formerly (1982-2018) Abobe Systems Incorporated, American developer of printing, publishing, and graphics software. Adobe was instrumental in the creation of the desktop publishing industry through the introduction of its PostScript printer language. Its headquarters are located in San Jose, California.

Founding of Adobe

The company was founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. While employed at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto (California) Research Center ( PARC), the two computer scientists had developed a programming language specially designed to describe the precise position, shape, and size of objects on a computer-generated page. This page description language, later known as PostScript, described such objects as letters and graphics in mathematical terms, without reference to any specific computer or printer; any device capable of interpreting the language would be able to generate a representation of the page at any resolution the device supported. When Xerox declined to bring the technology to market, Warnock and Geschke formed their own company to do so, naming it after a creek near their homes.

In 1983 Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.), acquired 15 percent of Adobe and became the first licensee of PostScript. In 1985 Apple introduced the first Macintosh-compatible PostScript printer, the LaserWriter, based on a laser-print engine developed by Canon Inc. The LaserWriter included PostScript renditions of several classic typefaces and a PostScript interpreter-in effect, a built-in computer dedicated to the task of translating PostScript commands into marks on each page.

Compared with the printing options previously available for personal computers, the combination of PostScript and laser printing represented a dramatic advance in typographical quality and design flexibility. Together with PageMaker, a page-layout application developed by Aldus Corporation, these technologies enabled any computer user to produce professional-looking reports, flyers, and newsletters without specialized lithography equipment and training-a phenomenon that became known as desktop publishing.

Many commercial printers and publishers were initially scornful because laser printer output fell short of professional standards. But manufacturers of the higher-resolution output devices called imagesetters, led by Linotype-Hell Company, followed Apple's example in licensing PostScript, and within a few years it became common throughout the publishing industry.

Font wars

Adobe made its initial public stock offering in 1986. Although revenues grew to $168.7 million by 1990, Adobe's relations with Apple deteriorated in the late 1980s over PostScript licensing fees, and in 1989 Apple announced plans to sell its Adobe stock, collaborate with Microsoft Corporation on development of an enhanced PostScript clone, and introduce a new font-rendering technology of its own, called TrueType. For more than a year the dispute, known as the font wars, roiled the computer and publishing worlds before Apple and Adobe reached a compromise. In the wake of the agreement, Microsoft abandoned its PostScript clone and adopted TrueType for its Windows operating systems.

Application software

During the 1990s Adobe's revenues from PostScript licensing continued to increase, as did its sales of PostScript fonts; by the end of 1998 the Adobe Type Library encompassed more than 2,500 typefaces. An ever-larger share of the company's revenues, however, came from sales of application software, initially for the Macintosh platform but later also for the UNIX and Windows operating systems. The first such application, introduced in 1987, was Adobe Illustrator, a PostScript-based drawing package for artists, designers, and technical illustrators. Adobe Photoshop, an application for retouching digitized photographic images, followed three years later and quickly became Adobe's most successful program. It was one of the first commercial applications with an interface enabling outside developers to make new features available through plug-ins within the main program; scores of developers took advantage of this "open architecture," helping to cement Photoshop's dominance within its category.

In subsequent years Adobe added many other applications, primarily through a series of acquisitions. In 1991 it brought out Adobe Premiere, a program for editing video and multimedia productions. In 1994 the company acquired Aldus and its PageMaker software. The following year Adobe bought Frame Technology Corporation, developer of FrameMaker, a program designed for the production of technical manuals and book-length documents. It also purchased Ceneca Communications, Inc., creator of PageMill, a program for creating World Wide Web pages, and SiteMill, a Web site-management utility. In 1996 Adobe released its first title aimed at consumers, a simplified photo-editing program called PhotoDeluxe.

Another major company initiative in the 1990s-the Adobe Acrobat product family-was designed to provide a standard format for electronic document distribution. Once a document had been converted to Acrobat's portable document format (PDF), regardless of its origins, users of any major computer operating system could read and print it, with formatting, typography, and graphics nearly intact, via the Acrobat Reader, an application the company offered for free. However, with the advent of the Internet and its need for compact file transfers, a competing format, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), eroded its market. In 1998 PDF became the new image format for the Macintosh operating system.

By 1997 almost 80 percent of Adobe's total revenues came from application sales, and that year marked the first time that Windows-product revenues exceeded Macintosh-product revenues. In 2005 Adobe acquired Macromedia, Inc. In addition to Macromedia FreeHand (a major competitor of Illustrator), Dreamweaver (Web-authoring software), and Director (software for producing CD-ROMs), Adobe gained two innovative programs, Shockwave and Flash, for producing and distributing animations and interactive media over the Internet for viewing in Web browsers. In 2008 Adobe Media Player was introduced as a competitor to Apple's iTunes, Windows Media Player, and RealPlayer from RealNetworks, Inc. In addition to playing audio and video files in a variety of formats on personal computers, Adobe Media Player was adopted by several television networks for deploying television shows over the Internet in the highly compact Flash format.
Henry R. Norr

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Adobe Inc., formerly (1982-2018) Abobe Systems Incorporated, American developer of printing, publishing, and graphics software. Adobe was instrumental in the creation of the desktop publishing industry through the introduction of its PostScript printer language. Its headquarters are located in San Jose, California. The company was founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke.

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En 1982, la Universidad de Osaka de Japón desarrolló una supercomputadora que utilizaba 257 microprocesadores Zilog Z8001 para mostrar gráficos 3D realistas. La década de 1980 fue llamada la época dorada de los videojuegos. Muchas empresas como Atari, Nintendo y Sega presentaron al público gráficos por ordenador con una interfaz completamente nueva.

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En 1995, Pixar lanzó su primera película animada comercial: Toy Story, que fue un gran éxito, tanto comercialmente como también en el campo de los gráficos por ordenador. En la misma década, muchos juegos en 3D, como los de carreras, los de First Person Shooters, los de lucha como Virtual Fighter, Tekken y uno de los más famosos, SuperMario, comenzaron a atraer al público con su interfaz y experiencia de juego.

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CGI se utilizó ampliamente para anuncios de televisión a finales de los años 1990 y 2000, y atrajo a una gran parte de la audiencia. La gran popularidad de los gráficos por computadora hizo que los gráficos 3D fueran una característica estándar que se utilizaría en la mayoría de los campos. Se realizaron muchas mejoras y los gráficos por computadora utilizados en películas y videojuegos se hicieron más realistas para atraer a la audiencia a gran escala.

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Muchas películas de dibujos animados como La Era del Hielo, Madagascar, Buscando a Nemo se convirtieron en una de las favoritas del público y dominaron la taquilla. Se produjeron muchos largometrajes generados por computadora, como Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Polar Express y Star Wars, que llamaron mucho la atención en ese momento.

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En la década de 2010, CGI amplió su uso y proporcionó gráficos en tiempo real en modos de resolución ultra alta en 4K. La mayoría de las películas animadas ahora son CGI e incluyen imágenes animadas y dibujos animados en 3D. EDesde entonces, el mundo de los gráficos por computadora ha seguido desarrollándose y recibió muchos elogios de la audiencia por enriquecer su experiencia y brindar una excelente plataforma para interactuar con gráficos por computadora de alta resolución.