A Software Testbed for the Development of 3D Raster Graphics Systems
Turner Whitted, David M. Weimer · ACM Transactions on Graphics · 1982
A set of utility programs for 3D shaded display that make up a testbed for creating raster scan display systems is described.The principal feature of this system is a flexible scan conversion processor that can simultaneously manage several different object types.Communications between the scan conversion routine and processes which follow it in the display pipeline can be routed through a structure called a span buffer which retains some of the highresolution, three-dimensional data of the object description and at the same time has the characteristics of a run length encoded image.It was found that the testbed software has the flexibility for a variety of experimental applications, and that the building block approach reduces the amount of programming effort required for new applications.