
Computer graphics deals with generating
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...
s with the aid of
computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great deal of specialized hardware and software has been developed, with the displays of most devices being driven by
computer graphics hardware. It is a vast and recently developed area of computer science. The phrase was coined in 1960 by computer graphics researchers Verne Hudson and William Fetter of Boeing. It is often abbreviated as CG, or typically in the context of film as
computer generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images ...
(CGI). The non-artistic aspects of computer graphics are the subject of
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
research.
Some topics in computer graphics include
user interface design,
sprite graphics,
rendering,
ray tracing,
geometry processing,
computer animation,
vector graphics
Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...
,
3D modeling,
shaders,
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mo ...
design,
implicit surface
In mathematics, an implicit surface is a surface in Euclidean space defined by an equation
: F(x,y,z)=0.
An ''implicit surface'' is the set of zeros of a function of three variables. '' Implicit'' means that the equation is not solved for ...
s,
visualization,
scientific computing,
image processing
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...
,
computational photography,
scientific visualization,
computational geometry
Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems ...
and
computer vision
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hu ...
, among others. The overall methodology depends heavily on the underlying sciences of
geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
,
optics,
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which re ...
, and
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
.

Computer graphics is responsible for displaying art and image data effectively and meaningfully to the consumer. It is also used for processing image data received from the physical world, such as photo and video content. Computer graphics development has had a significant impact on many types of media and has revolutionized
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
,
movies,
advertising,
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
s, in general.
Overview
The term computer graphics has been used in a broad sense to describe "almost everything on computers that is not text or sound". Typically, the term ''computer graphics'' refers to several different things:
* the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer
* the various
technologies
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scienc ...
used to create and manipulate images
* methods for digitally synthesizing and manipulating visual content, see
study of computer graphics
Today, computer graphics is widespread. Such imagery is found in and on television, newspapers, weather reports, and in a variety of medical investigations and surgical procedures. A well-constructed
graph can present complex statistics in a form that is easier to understand and interpret. In the media "such graphs are used to illustrate papers, reports, theses", and other presentation material.
Many tools have been developed to visualize data. Computer-generated imagery can be categorized into several different types: two dimensional (2D), three dimensional (3D), and animated graphics. As technology has improved,
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for ...
have become more common, but
2D computer graphics are still widely used. Computer graphics has emerged as a sub-field of
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
which studies methods for digitally synthesizing and manipulating visual content. Over the past decade, other specialized fields have been developed like
information visualization, and
scientific visualization more concerned with "the visualization of
three dimensional
Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informa ...
phenomena (architectural, meteorological, medical,
biological
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, etc.), where the emphasis is on realistic renderings of volumes, surfaces, illumination sources, and so forth, perhaps with a dynamic (time) component".
[ Michael Friendly (2008)]
"Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization"
History
The precursor sciences to the development of modern computer graphics were the advances in
electrical engineering,
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
, and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
that took place during the first half of the twentieth century. Screens could display art since the
Lumiere brothers' use of
mattes to create special effects for the earliest films dating from 1895, but such displays were limited and not interactive. The first
cathode ray tube
A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms ( oscilloscope), pic ...
, the
Braun tube
A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pi ...
, was invented in 1897 – it in turn would permit the
oscilloscope and the military
control panel – the more direct precursors of the field, as they provided the first two-dimensional electronic displays that responded to programmatic or user input. Nevertheless, computer graphics remained relatively unknown as a discipline until the 1950s and the post-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
period – during which time the discipline emerged from a combination of both pure
university
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
and
laboratory
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicia ...
academic research into more advanced computers and the
United States military
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...
's further development of technologies like
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, ...
, advanced
aviation, and
rocketry developed during the war. New kinds of displays were needed to process the wealth of information resulting from such projects, leading to the development of computer graphics as a discipline.
1950s

Early projects like the
Whirlwind
A whirlwind is a weather phenomenon in which a vortex of wind (a vertically oriented rotating column of air) forms due to instabilities and turbulence created by heating and flow ( current) gradients. Whirlwinds occur all over the world and ...
and
SAGE Projects introduced the
CRT as a viable
display and interaction interface and introduced the
light pen
A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's cathode-ray tube (CRT) display.
It allows the user to point to displayed objects or draw on the screen in a similar way to a to ...
as an
input device
In computing, an input device is a piece of equipment used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system, such as a computer or information appliance. Examples of input devices include keyboards, mouse, scanners, cameras ...
.
Douglas T. Ross of the Whirlwind SAGE system performed a personal experiment in which he wrote a small program that captured the movement of his finger and displayed its vector (his traced name) on a display scope. One of the first interactive video games to feature recognizable, interactive graphics – ''
Tennis for Two'' – was created for an oscilloscope by
William Higinbotham to entertain visitors in 1958 at
Brookhaven National Laboratory and simulated a tennis match. In 1959,
Douglas T. Ross innovated again while working at MIT on transforming mathematic statements into computer generated 3D machine tool vectors by taking the opportunity to create a display scope image of a
Disney cartoon character.
Electronics pioneer
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
went public in 1957 after incorporating the decade prior, and established strong ties with
Stanford University through its founders, who were
alumni. This began the decades-long transformation of the southern
San Francisco Bay Area into the world's leading computer technology hub – now known as
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...
. The field of computer graphics developed with the emergence of computer graphics hardware.
Further advances in computing led to greater advancements in
interactive computer graphics. In 1959, the
TX-2 computer was developed at
MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. The TX-2 integrated a number of new man-machine interfaces. A
light pen
A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's cathode-ray tube (CRT) display.
It allows the user to point to displayed objects or draw on the screen in a similar way to a to ...
could be used to draw sketches on the computer using
Ivan Sutherland's revolutionary
Sketchpad software.
Using a light pen, Sketchpad allowed one to draw simple shapes on the computer screen, save them and even recall them later. The light pen itself had a small
photoelectric cell in its tip. This cell emitted an electronic pulse whenever it was placed in front of a computer screen and the screen's
electron gun
An electron gun (also called electron emitter) is an electrical component in some vacuum tubes that produces a narrow, collimated electron beam that has a precise kinetic energy. The largest use is in cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), used in near ...
fired directly at it. By simply timing the electronic pulse with the current location of the electron gun, it was easy to pinpoint exactly where the pen was on the screen at any given moment. Once that was determined, the computer could then draw a cursor at that location. Sutherland seemed to find the perfect solution for many of the graphics problems he faced. Even today, many standards of computer graphics interfaces got their start with this early Sketchpad program. One example of this is in drawing constraints. If one wants to draw a square for example, they do not have to worry about drawing four lines perfectly to form the edges of the box. One can simply specify that they want to draw a box, and then specify the location and size of the box. The software will then construct a perfect box, with the right dimensions and at the right location. Another example is that Sutherland's software modeled objects – not just a picture of objects. In other words, with a model of a car, one could change the size of the tires without affecting the rest of the car. It could stretch the body of car without deforming the tires.
1960s

The phrase "computer graphics" has been credited to
William Fetter
William Fetter, also known as William Alan Fetter or Bill Fetter (March 14, 1928June 23, 2002), was an American graphic designer and pioneer in the field of computer graphics. He explored the perspective fundamentals of computer animation of a h ...
, a graphic designer for
Boeing in 1960. Fetter in turn attributed it to Verne Hudson, also at Boeing.
In 1961 another student at MIT,
Steve Russell, created another important title in the history of
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
s, ''
Spacewar!'' Written for the
DEC PDP-1
The PDP-1 (''Programmed Data Processor-1'') is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at Massachuset ...
, ''Spacewar'' was an instant success and copies started flowing to other PDP-1 owners and eventually DEC got a copy. The engineers at DEC used it as a diagnostic program on every new PDP-1 before shipping it. The sales force picked up on this quickly enough and when installing new units, would run the "world's first video game" for their new customers. (Higginbotham's ''
Tennis For Two'' had beaten ''Spacewar'' by almost three years, but it was almost unknown outside of a research or academic setting.)
At around the same time (1961–1962) in the University of Cambridge, Elizabeth Waldram wrote code to display radio-astronomy maps on a cathode ray tube.
E. E. Zajac, a scientist at
Bell Telephone Laboratory (BTL), created a film called "Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude control system" in 1963. In this computer-generated film, Zajac showed how the attitude of a satellite could be altered as it orbits the Earth. He created the animation on an
IBM 7090
The IBM 7090 is a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member of the IBM 700/7000 seri ...
mainframe computer. Also at BTL,
Ken Knowlton, Frank Sinden,
Ruth A. Weiss and
Michael Noll started working in the computer graphics field. Sinden created a film calle
''Force, Mass and Motion''illustrating
Newton's laws of motion in operation. Around the same time, other scientists were creating computer graphics to illustrate their research. At
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Nelson Max created the films ''Flow of a Viscous Fluid'' and ''Propagation of Shock Waves in a Solid Form''.
Boeing Aircraft created a film called ''Vibration of an Aircraft''.
Also sometime in the early 1960s,
automobiles would also provide a boost through the early work of
Pierre Bézier at
Renault, who used
Paul de Casteljau's curves – now called
Bézier curve
A Bézier curve ( ) is a parametric curve used in computer graphics and related fields. A set of discrete "control points" defines a smooth, continuous curve by means of a formula. Usually the curve is intended to approximate a real-world shape ...
s after Bézier's work in the field – to develop 3d modeling techniques for
Renault car bodies. These curves would form the foundation for much curve-modeling work in the field, as curves – unlike polygons – are mathematically complex entities to draw and model well.

It was not long before major corporations started taking an interest in computer graphics.
TRW,
Lockheed-Georgia,
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ener ...
and
Sperry Rand are among the many companies that were getting started in computer graphics by the mid-1960s. IBM was quick to respond to this interest by releasing the
IBM 2250 graphics terminal, the first commercially available graphics computer.
Ralph Baer, a supervising engineer at
Sanders Associates, came up with a home
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
in 1966 that was later licensed to
Magnavox and called the
Odyssey. While very simplistic, and requiring fairly inexpensive electronic parts, it allowed the player to move points of light around on a screen. It was the first consumer computer graphics product.
David C. Evans was director of engineering at
Bendix Corporation
Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company which, during various times in its existence, made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft brakes, aeronautical hydraulics and electric power systems, ...
's computer division from 1953 to 1962, after which he worked for the next five years as a visiting professor at Berkeley. There he continued his interest in computers and how they interfaced with people. In 1966, the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University ...
recruited Evans to form a computer science program, and computer graphics quickly became his primary interest. This new department would become the world's primary research center for computer graphics through the 1970s.
Also, in 1966,
Ivan Sutherland continued to innovate at MIT when he invented the first computer-controlled
head-mounted display (HMD). It displayed two separate wireframe images, one for each eye. This allowed the viewer to see the computer scene in
stereoscopic 3D. The heavy hardware required for supporting the display and tracker was called the Sword of Damocles because of the potential danger if it were to fall upon the wearer. After receiving his Ph.D. from MIT, Sutherland became Director of Information Processing at
ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), and later became a professor at Harvard. In 1967 Sutherland was recruited by Evans to join the computer science program at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University ...
– a development which would turn that department into one of the most important research centers in graphics for nearly a decade thereafter, eventually producing some of the most important pioneers in the field. There Sutherland perfected his HMD; twenty years later, NASA would re-discover his techniques in their
virtual reality research. At Utah, Sutherland and Evans were highly sought after consultants by large companies, but they were frustrated at the lack of graphics hardware available at the time, so they started formulating a plan to start their own company.
In 1968, Dave Evans and Ivan Sutherland founded the first computer graphics hardware company,
Evans & Sutherland
Evans & Sutherland is a pioneering American computer firm in the computer graphics field. Its current products are used in digital projection environments like planetariums. Its simulation business, which it sold to Rockwell Collins, sold produc ...
. While Sutherland originally wanted the company to be located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Salt Lake City was instead chosen due to its proximity to the professors' research group at the University of Utah.
Also in 1968 Arthur Appel described the first
ray casting algorithm, the first of a class of
ray tracing-based rendering algorithms that have since become fundamental in achieving
photorealism in graphics by modeling the paths that rays of light take from a light source, to surfaces in a scene, and into the camera.
In 1969, the
ACM initiated A Special Interest Group on Graphics (
SIGGRAPH) which organizes
conferences,
graphics standards
An Image file format is a file format for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Most formats up until 2022 were for storing 2D images, not 3D ones. The data stored in an image file format may be ...
, and publications within the field of computer graphics. By 1973, the first annual SIGGRAPH conference was held, which has become one of the focuses of the organization. SIGGRAPH has grown in size and importance as the field of computer graphics has expanded over time.
1970s

Subsequently, a number of breakthroughs in the field – particularly important early breakthroughs in the transformation of graphics from utilitarian to realistic – occurred at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University ...
in the 1970s, which had hired
Ivan Sutherland. He was paired with
David C. Evans to teach an advanced computer graphics class, which contributed a great deal of founding research to the field and taught several students who would grow to found several of the industry's most important companies – namely
Pixar,
Silicon Graphics, and
Adobe Systems. Tom Stockham led the image processing group at UU which worked closely with the computer graphics lab.
One of these students was
Edwin Catmull
Edwin Earl "Ed" Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist who is the co-founder of Pixar and was the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, including ...
. Catmull had just come from
The Boeing Company
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and prod ...
and had been working on his degree in physics. Growing up on
Disney, Catmull loved animation yet quickly discovered that he did not have the talent for drawing. Now Catmull (along with many others) saw computers as the natural progression of animation and they wanted to be part of the revolution. The first computer animation that Catmull saw was his own. He created an animation of his hand opening and closing. He also pioneered
texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color.
History
The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974.
Texture mapping ...
to paint textures on three-dimensional models in 1974, now considered one of the fundamental techniques in
3D modeling. It became one of his goals to produce a feature-length motion picture using computer graphics – a goal he would achieve two decades later after his founding role in
Pixar. In the same class,
Fred Parke created an animation of his wife's face. The two animations were included in the 1976 feature film
Futureworld
''Futureworld'' is a 1976 American science fiction thriller film directed by Richard T. Heffron and written by Mayo Simon and George Schenck. It is a sequel to the 1973 Michael Crichton film '' Westworld'', and is the second installment in t ...
.
As the UU computer graphics laboratory was attracting people from all over,
John Warnock was another of those early pioneers; he later founded
Adobe Systems and create a revolution in the publishing world with his
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug ...
page description language, and Adobe would go on later to create the industry standard
photo editing software in
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in rast ...
and a prominent movie industry
special effects program in
Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc., and used in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among other things, After ...
.
James Clark was also there; he later founded
Silicon Graphics, a maker of advanced rendering systems that would dominate the field of high-end graphics until the early 1990s.
A major advance in 3D computer graphics was created at UU by these early pioneers –
hidden surface determination. In order to draw a representation of a 3D object on the screen, the computer must determine which surfaces are "behind" the object from the viewer's perspective, and thus should be "hidden" when the computer creates (or renders) the image. The
3D Core Graphics System (or Core) was the first graphical standard to be developed. A group of 25 experts of the
ACM Special Interest Group SIGGRAPH developed this "conceptual framework". The specifications were published in 1977, and it became a foundation for many future developments in the field.
Also in the 1970s,
Henri Gouraud,
Jim Blinn and
Bui Tuong Phong
Bui Tuong Phong (December 14, 1942 – July 1975) was a Vietnamese-born computer graphics researcher and pioneer. He invented the widely used Phong shading algorithm and Phong reflection model.
Life
Phong was born in Hanoi, then French ...
contributed to the foundations of
shading in CGI via the development of the
Gouraud shading and
Blinn–Phong shading models, allowing graphics to move beyond a "flat" look to a look more accurately portraying depth.
Jim Blinn also innovated further in 1978 by introducing
bump mapping
Bump mapping is a texture mapping technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting calcu ...
, a technique for simulating uneven surfaces, and the predecessor to many more advanced kinds of mapping used today.
The modern
videogame arcade as is known today was birthed in the 1970s, with the first arcade games using
real-time 2D sprite graphics. ''
Pong'' in 1972 was one of the first hit arcade cabinet games. ''
Speed Race
is a 1974 arcade racing video game developed and manufactured by Taito and released under the titles ''Racer'' and ''Wheels'' in North America by distributor Midway Manufacturing in 1975. Designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, the gameplay involve ...
'' in 1974 featured sprites moving along a vertically
scrolling
In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the tex ...
road. ''
Gun Fight'' in 1975 featured human-looking animated characters, while ''
Space Invaders
is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and ...
'' in 1978 featured a large number of animated figures on screen; both used a specialized
barrel shifter circuit made from discrete chips to help their
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compati ...
microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
animate their
framebuffer
A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Modern ...
graphics.
1980s

The 1980s began to see the modernization and commercialization of computer graphics. As the
home computer proliferated, a subject which had previously been an academics-only discipline was adopted by a much larger audience, and the number of computer graphics developers increased significantly.
In the early 1980s,
metal–oxide–semiconductor
The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which ...
(MOS)
very-large-scale integration
Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) ...
(VLSI) technology led to the availability of
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...
central processing unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, ...
(CPU)
microprocessors and the first
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...
(GPU) chips, which began to revolutionize computer graphics, enabling
high-resolution
Image resolution is the detail an image holds. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail.
Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies how cl ...
graphics for computer graphics terminals as well as
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
(PC) systems.
NEC
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network solu ...
's
µPD7220 was the first GPU,
fabricated on a fully integrated
NMOS VLSI
chip. It supported up to
1024x1024 resolution, and laid the foundations for the emerging PC graphics market. It was used in a number of
graphics cards
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...
, and was licensed for clones such as the
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
82720, the first of
Intel's graphics processing units.
MOS memory also became cheaper in the early 1980s, enabling the development of affordable
framebuffer
A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Modern ...
memory, notably
video RAM (VRAM) introduced by
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers gl ...
(TI) in the mid-1980s.
In 1984,
Hitachi
() is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...
released the ARTC HD63484, the first
complementary MOS (CMOS) GPU. It was capable of displaying high-resolution in color mode and up to
4K resolution
4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the domin ...
in monochrome mode, and it was used in a number of graphics cards and terminals during the late 1980s. In 1986, TI introduced the
TMS34010, the first fully programmable
MOS graphics processor.
Computer graphics terminals during this decade became increasingly intelligent, semi-standalone and standalone workstations. Graphics and application processing were increasingly migrated to the intelligence in the workstation, rather than continuing to rely on central mainframe and
mini-computers. Typical of the early move to high-resolution computer graphics intelligent workstations for the computer-aided engineering market were the Orca 1000, 2000 and 3000 workstations, developed by Orcatech of Ottawa, a spin-off from
Bell-Northern Research, and led by David Pearson, an early workstation pioneer. The Orca 3000 was based on the 16-bit
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sec ...
microprocessor and
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
bit-slice processors, and had Unix as its operating system. It was targeted squarely at the sophisticated end of the design engineering sector. Artists and graphic designers began to see the personal computer, particularly the
Commodore Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
and
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
, as a serious design tool, one that could save time and draw more accurately than other methods. The Macintosh remains a highly popular tool for computer graphics among graphic design studios and businesses. Modern computers, dating from the 1980s, often use
graphical user interfaces
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...
(GUI) to present data and information with symbols, icons and pictures, rather than text. Graphics are one of the five key elements of
multimedia technology.
In the field of realistic rendering,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
's
Osaka University developed the
LINKS-1 Computer Graphics System, a
supercomputer that used up to 257
Zilog Z8001 microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s, in 1982, for the purpose of rendering realistic
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for ...
. According to the Information Processing Society of Japan: "The core of 3D image rendering is calculating the luminance of each pixel making up a rendered surface from the given viewpoint,
light source
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 t ...
, and object position. The LINKS-1 system was developed to realize an image rendering methodology in which each pixel could be parallel processed independently using
ray tracing. By developing a new software methodology specifically for high-speed image rendering, LINKS-1 was able to rapidly render highly realistic images. It was used to create the world's first 3D
planetarium-like video of the entire
heavens that was made completely with computer graphics. The video was presented at the
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the l ...
pavilion at the 1985 International Exposition in
Tsukuba." The LINKS-1 was the world's most powerful
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
, as of 1984. Also in the field of realistic rendering, the general
rendering equation of David Immel and
James Kajiya was developed in 1986 – an important step towards implementing
global illumination, which is necessary to pursue
photorealism in computer graphics.
The continuing popularity of ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various fil ...
'' and other science fiction franchises were relevant in cinematic CGI at this time, as
Lucasfilm and
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began p ...
became known as the "go-to" house by many other studios for topnotch computer graphics in film. Important advances in
chroma key
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...
ing ("bluescreening", etc.) were made for the later films of the original trilogy. Two other pieces of video would also outlast the era as historically relevant:
Dire Straits
Dire Straits were a British rock band formed in London in 1977 by Mark Knopfler (lead vocals and lead guitar), David Knopfler (rhythm guitar and backing vocals), John Illsley (bass guitar and backing vocals) and Pick Withers (drums and per ...
' iconic, near-fully-CGI video for their song "
Money for Nothing" in 1985, which popularized CGI among music fans of that era, and a scene from
Young Sherlock Holmes the same year featuring the first fully CGI character in a feature movie (an animated stained-glass
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the ...
). In 1988, the first
shaders – small programs designed specifically to do
shading as a separate algorithm – were developed by
Pixar, which had already spun off from Industrial Light & Magic as a separate entity – though the public would not see the results of such technological progress until the next decade. In the late 1980s,
Silicon Graphics (SGI) computers were used to create some of the first fully computer-generated
short films at
Pixar, and Silicon Graphics machines were considered a high-water mark for the field during the decade.
The 1980s is also called the
golden era of
videogames; millions-selling systems from
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Calif ...
,
Nintendo
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards. ...
and
Sega
is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its divisio ...
, among other companies, exposed computer graphics for the first time to a new, young, and impressionable audience – as did
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ...
-based personal computers,
Apple II
The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mo ...
s,
Macs, and
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
s, all of which also allowed users to program their own games if skilled enough. For the
arcades, advances were made in commercial,
real-time 3D graphics. In 1988, the first dedicated real-time 3D
graphics boards were introduced for arcades, with the
Namco System 21 and
Taito Air System. On the professional side,
Evans & Sutherland
Evans & Sutherland is a pioneering American computer firm in the computer graphics field. Its current products are used in digital projection environments like planetariums. Its simulation business, which it sold to Rockwell Collins, sold produc ...
and SGI developed 3D raster graphics hardware that directly influenced the later single-chip
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...
(GPU), a technology where a separate and very powerful chip is used in
parallel processing with a
CPU to optimize graphics.
The decade also saw computer graphics applied to many additional professional markets, including location-based entertainment and education with the E&S Digistar, vehicle design, vehicle simulation, and chemistry.
1990s

The 1990s' overwhelming note was the emergence of
3D modeling on a mass scale and an impressive rise in the quality of CGI generally. Home computers became able to take on rendering tasks that previously had been limited to workstations costing thousands of dollars; as
3D modelers became available for home systems, the popularity of
Silicon Graphics workstations declined and powerful
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, W ...
and
Apple Macintosh machines running
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartere ...
products like
3D Studio or other home rendering software ascended in importance. By the end of the decade, the
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mo ...
would begin its rise to the prominence it still enjoys today.
The field began to see the first rendered graphics that could truly pass as
photorealistic to the untrained eye (though they could not yet do so with a trained CGI artist) and
3D graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for t ...
became far more popular in
gaming,
multimedia, and
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the nineties were created, in France, the very first computer graphics TV series: ''La Vie des bêtes'' by studio Mac Guff Ligne (1988), ''Les Fables Géométriques'' (1989–1991) by studio Fantôme, and ''
Quarxs'', the first HDTV computer graphics series by
Maurice Benayoun and
François Schuiten
François Schuiten (; born 26 April 1956) is a Belgian comic book artist. He is best known for drawing the series '' Les Cités Obscures''.
Biography
François Schuiten was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1956.De Weyer, Geert (2005). "François Sch ...
(studio Z-A production, 1990–1993).
In film,
Pixar began its serious commercial rise in this era under
Edwin Catmull
Edwin Earl "Ed" Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist who is the co-founder of Pixar and was the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, including ...
, with its first major film release, in 1995 –
Toy Story
''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American computer-animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The first installment in the '' Toy Stor ...
– a critical and commercial success of nine-figure magnitude. The studio to invent the programmable
shader would go on to have many animated hits, and its work on prerendered video animation is still considered an industry leader and research trail breaker.
In video games, in 1992, ''
Virtua Racing'', running on the
Sega Model 1 arcade system board, laid the foundations for fully 3D
racing games and popularized real-time
3D polygonal graphics among a wider audience in the
video game industry
The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide.
The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstrea ...
. The
Sega Model 2 in 1993 and
Sega Model 3 in 1996 subsequently pushed the boundaries of commercial, real-time 3D graphics. Back on the PC, ''
Wolfenstein 3D
''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game '' Castle Wolf ...
'', ''
Doom'' and ''
Quake'', three of the first massively popular 3D
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
games, were released by
id Software
id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and arti ...
to critical and popular acclaim during this decade using a rendering engine innovated primarily by
John Carmack. The
Sony PlayStation
is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divi ...
,
Sega Saturn, and
Nintendo 64
The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and ...
, among other consoles, sold in the millions and popularized 3D graphics for home gamers. Certain late-1990s first-generation 3D titles became seen as influential in popularizing 3D graphics among console users, such as
platform game
A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charact ...
s ''
Super Mario 64'' and ''
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time'', and early 3D
fighting game
A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...
s like ''
Virtua Fighter'', ''
Battle Arena Toshinden'', and ''
Tekken''.
Technology and algorithms for rendering continued to improve greatly. In 1996, Krishnamurty and Levoy invented
normal mapping
In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping, is a texture mapping technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents – an implementation of bump mapping. It is used to add details without using more polygons. A common u ...
– an improvement on Jim Blinn's
bump mapping
Bump mapping is a texture mapping technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting calcu ...
. 1999 saw
Nvidia
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
release the seminal
GeForce 256, the first home
video card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...
billed as a
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...
or GPU, which in its own words contained "integrated
transform,
lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...
,
triangle setup/
clipping, and
rendering engines". By the end of the decade, computers adopted common frameworks for graphics processing such as
DirectX and
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve har ...
. Since then, computer graphics have only become more detailed and realistic, due to more powerful
graphics hardware and
3D modeling software
In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of any surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software by manipulating edges, vertices, a ...
.
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
also became a leading developer of graphics boards in this decade, creating a "duopoly" in the field which exists this day.
2000s

CGI became ubiquitous in earnest during this era.
Video games and CGI
cinema had spread the reach of computer graphics to the mainstream by the late 1990s and continued to do so at an accelerated pace in the 2000s. CGI was also adopted ''en masse'' for
television advertisements widely in the late 1990s and 2000s, and so became familiar to a massive audience.
The continued rise and increasing sophistication of the
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...
were crucial to this decade, and 3D rendering capabilities became a standard feature as 3D-graphics GPUs became considered a necessity for
desktop computer
A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...
makers to offer. The
Nvidia GeForce line of graphics cards dominated the market in the early decade with occasional significant competing presence from
ATI. As the decade progressed, even low-end machines usually contained a 3D-capable GPU of some kind as
Nvidia
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
and
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
both introduced low-priced chipsets and continued to dominate the market.
Shaders which had been introduced in the 1980s to perform specialized processing on the GPU would by the end of the decade become supported on most consumer hardware, speeding up graphics considerably and allowing for greatly improved
texture and
shading in computer graphics via the widespread adoption of
normal mapping
In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping, is a texture mapping technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents – an implementation of bump mapping. It is used to add details without using more polygons. A common u ...
,
bump mapping
Bump mapping is a texture mapping technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting calcu ...
, and a variety of other techniques allowing the simulation of a great amount of detail.
Computer graphics used in films and
video games gradually began to be realistic to the point of entering the
uncanny valley
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley ( ja, 不気味の谷 ''bukimi no tani'') is a hypothesized relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The concept suggests that humanoid object ...
.
CGI movies proliferated, with traditional animated
cartoon films like
Ice Age and
Madagascar as well as numerous
Pixar offerings like
Finding Nemo dominating the box office in this field. The ''
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within'', released in 2001, was the first fully computer-generated feature film to use photorealistic CGI characters and be fully made with motion capture. The film was not a box-office success, however. Some commentators have suggested this may be partly because the lead CGI characters had facial features which fell into the "
uncanny valley
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley ( ja, 不気味の谷 ''bukimi no tani'') is a hypothesized relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The concept suggests that humanoid object ...
". Other animated films like ''
The Polar Express'' drew attention at this time as well. ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various fil ...
'' also resurfaced with its prequel trilogy and the effects continued to set a bar for CGI in film.
In
videogames, the
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia o ...
and
3, the
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
Xbox line of consoles, and offerings from
Nintendo
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards. ...
such as the
GameCube
The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the ...
maintained a large following, as did the
Windows PC. Marquee CGI-heavy titles like the series of
Grand Theft Auto,
Assassin's Creed
''Assassin's Creed'' is an open-world, action-adventure, and stealth game franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil (game engine), Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Cr ...
,
Final Fantasy
is a Japanese video game, Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square (video game company), Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and ...
,
BioShock,
Kingdom Hearts
is a series of action role-playing games developed and published by Square Enix (originally by Square). It is a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company and is under the leadership of Tetsuya Nomura, a longtime Square Eni ...
,
Mirror's Edge and dozens of others continued to approach
photorealism, grow the video game industry and impress, until that industry's revenues became comparable to those of movies.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
made a decision to expose
DirectX more easily to the independent developer world with the
XNA program, but it was not a success. DirectX itself remained a commercial success, however.
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve har ...
continued to mature as well, and it and
DirectX improved greatly; the second-generation shader languages
HLSL and
GLSL began to be popular in this decade.
In
scientific computing, the
GPGPU
General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU, or less often GPGP) is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU), which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditio ...
technique to pass large amounts of data bidirectionally between a GPU and CPU was invented; speeding up analysis on many kinds of
bioinformatics
Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
and
molecular biology experiments. The technique has also been used for
Bitcoin
Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public dist ...
mining and has applications in
computer vision
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hu ...
.
2010s

In the 2010s, CGI has been nearly ubiquitous in video, pre-rendered graphics are nearly scientifically
photorealistic, and real-time graphics on a suitably high-end system may simulate photorealism to the untrained eye.
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color.
History
The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974.
Texture mapping ...
has matured into a multistage process with many layers; generally, it is not uncommon to implement texture mapping,
bump mapping
Bump mapping is a texture mapping technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting calcu ...
or
isosurface
An isosurface is a three-dimensional analog of an isoline. It is a surface that represents points of a constant value (e.g. pressure, temperature, velocity, density) within a volume of space; in other words, it is a level set of a continuo ...
s or
normal mapping
In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping, is a texture mapping technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents – an implementation of bump mapping. It is used to add details without using more polygons. A common u ...
, lighting maps including
specular highlights and
reflection techniques, and
shadow volumes into one rendering engine using
shaders, which are maturing considerably. Shaders are now very nearly a necessity for advanced work in the field, providing considerable complexity in manipulating
pixels,
vertices, and
textures on a per-element basis, and countless possible effects. Their shader languages
HLSL and
GLSL are active fields of research and development.
Physically based rendering or PBR, which implements many maps and performs advanced calculation to simulate real
optic light flow, is an active research area as well, along with advanced areas like
ambient occlusion,
subsurface scattering
Subsurface scattering (SSS), also known as subsurface light transport (SSLT), is a mechanism of light transport in which light that penetrates the surface of a translucent object is scattered by interacting with the material and exits the su ...
,
Rayleigh scattering,
photon mapping, and many others. Experiments into the processing power required to provide graphics in
real time at ultra-high-resolution modes like
4K Ultra HD are beginning, though beyond reach of all but the highest-end hardware.
In cinema, most
animated movies are CGI now;
a great many animated CGI films are made per year, but few, if any, attempt photorealism due to continuing fears of the
uncanny valley
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley ( ja, 不気味の谷 ''bukimi no tani'') is a hypothesized relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The concept suggests that humanoid object ...
. Most are 3D
cartoons.
In videogames, the
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
,
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
PlayStation 4
The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 i ...
, and
Nintendo Switch
The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it ...
currently dominate the home space and are all capable of highly advanced 3D graphics; the
Windows PC is still one of the most active gaming platforms as well.
Image types
Two-dimensional
2D computer graphics are the computer-based generation of
digital images—mostly from models, such as digital image, and by techniques specific to them.
2D computer graphics are mainly used in applications that were originally developed upon traditional
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
and
drawing technologies such as typography. In those applications, the two-dimensional
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...
is not just a representation of a real-world object, but an independent artifact with added semantic value; two-dimensional models are therefore preferred because they give more direct control of the image than
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for ...
, whose approach is more akin to
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed i ...
than to
typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), a ...
.
Pixel art
A large form of digital art, pixel art is created through the use of
raster graphics software, where images are edited on the
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...
level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games,
graphing calculator games, and many
mobile phone games are mostly pixel art.
Sprite graphics
A
sprite is a two-dimensional
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...
or
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
that is integrated into a larger scene. Initially including just graphical objects handled separately from the memory
bitmap
In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array or bitmap index.
As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a particular bitmapping application: ...
of a video display, this now includes various manners of graphical overlays.
Originally, sprites were a method of integrating unrelated bitmaps so that they appeared to be part of the normal bitmap on a
screen, such as creating an animated character that can be moved on a screen without altering the
data defining the overall screen. Such sprites can be created by either electronic
circuitry or
software. In circuitry, a hardware sprite is a
hardware construct that employs custom
DMA channels to integrate visual elements with the main screen in that it super-imposes two discrete video sources. Software can simulate this through specialized rendering methods.
Vector graphics
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...
formats are complementary to
raster graphics. Raster graphics is the representation of images as an array of
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...
s and is typically used for the representation of photographic images. Vector graphics consists in encoding information about shapes and colors that comprise the image, which can allow for more flexibility in rendering. There are instances when working with vector tools and formats is best practice, and instances when working with raster tools and formats is best practice. There are times when both formats come together. An understanding of the advantages and limitations of each technology and the relationship between them is most likely to result in efficient and effective use of tools.
Generative machine-learning models

Since the mid-2010s, as a result of advances in
deep neural networks, models have been created which take as input a natural language description and produces as output an image matching that description. Text-to-image models generally combine a
language model, which transforms the input text into a latent representation, and a
generative
Generative may refer to:
* Generative actor, a person who instigates social change
* Generative art, art that has been created using an autonomous system that is frequently, but not necessarily, implemented using a computer
* Generative music, mu ...
image model, which produces an image conditioned on that representation. The most effective models have generally been trained on massive amounts of image and text data scraped from the web. By 2022, the best of these models, for example
Dall-E 2 and
Stable Diffusion, are able to create images in a range of styles, ranging from imitations of living artists to near-photorealistic, in a matter of seconds, given powerful enough hardware.
Three-dimensional
3D graphics, compared to 2D graphics, are graphics that use a
three-dimensional representation of geometric data. For the purpose of performance, this is stored in the computer. This includes images that may be for later display or for real-time viewing.
Despite these differences, 3D computer graphics rely on similar
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s as 2D computer graphics do in the frame and raster graphics (like in 2D) in the final rendered display. In computer graphics software, the distinction between 2D and 3D is occasionally blurred; 2D applications may use 3D techniques to achieve effects such as lighting, and primarily 3D may use 2D rendering techniques.
3D computer graphics are the same as 3D models. The model is contained within the graphical data file, apart from the rendering. However, there are differences that include the 3D model is the representation of any 3D object. Until visually displayed a model is not graphic. Due to printing, 3D models are not only confined to virtual space. 3D rendering is how a model can be displayed. Also can be used in non-graphical
computer simulation
Computer simulation is the process of mathematical modelling, performed on a computer, which is designed to predict the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be det ...
s and calculations.
Computer animation
Computer animation is the art of creating moving images via the use of
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
s. It is a subfield of computer graphics and
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
. Increasingly it is created by means of
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for ...
, though
2D computer graphics are still widely used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster
real-time rendering
Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface ( GUI) t ...
needs. Sometimes the target of the animation is the computer itself, but sometimes the target is another
medium, such as
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
. It is also referred to as CGI (
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The image ...
or computer-generated imaging), especially when used in films.
Virtual entities may contain and be controlled by assorted attributes, such as transform values (location, orientation, and scale) stored in an object's
transformation matrix. Animation is the change of an attribute over time. Multiple methods of achieving animation exist; the rudimentary form is based on the creation and editing of
keyframes, each storing a value at a given time, per attribute to be animated. The 2D/3D graphics software will change with each keyframe, creating an editable curve of a value mapped over time, in which results in animation. Other methods of animation include
procedural and
expression
Expression may refer to:
Linguistics
* Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence
* Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning
* Idiom, a type of fixed expression
* Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, o ...
-based techniques: the former consolidates related elements of animated entities into sets of attributes, useful for creating
particle
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, fr ...
effects and
crowd simulations; the latter allows an evaluated result returned from a user-defined logical expression, coupled with mathematics, to automate animation in a predictable way (convenient for controlling bone behavior beyond what a
hierarchy offers in
skeletal system
A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...
set up).
To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer
screen then quickly replaced by a new image that is similar to the previous image, but shifted slightly. This technique is identical to the illusion of movement in
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
and
motion pictures.
Concepts and principles
Images are typically created by devices such as
camera
A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...
s,
mirror
A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the ...
s,
lenses,
telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obs ...
s,
microscope
A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisib ...
s, etc.
Digital images include both
vector
Vector most often refers to:
*Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction
*Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism
Vector may also refer to:
Mathematic ...
images and
raster images, but raster images are more commonly used.
Pixel

In digital imaging, a
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...
(or picture element) is a single point in a
raster image
upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...
. Pixels are placed on a regular 2-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots or squares. Each pixel is a
sample of an original image, where more samples typically provide a more accurate representation of the original. The
intensity
Intensity may refer to:
In colloquial use
* Strength (disambiguation)
*Amplitude
* Level (disambiguation)
* Magnitude (disambiguation)
In physical sciences
Physics
* Intensity (physics), power per unit area (W/m2)
*Field strength of electric, ...
of each pixel is variable; in color systems, each pixel has typically three
components such as
red, green, and blue.
Graphics
Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, ...
are
visual presentations on a surface, such as a computer screen. Examples are photographs, drawing, graphics designs,
maps,
engineering drawings, or other images. Graphics often combine text and illustration. Graphic design may consist of the deliberate selection, creation, or arrangement of typography alone, as in a brochure, flier, poster, web site, or book without any other element. Clarity or effective communication may be the objective, association with other cultural elements may be sought, or merely, the creation of a distinctive style.
Primitives
Primitives are basic units which a graphics system may combine to create more complex images or models. Examples would be
sprites and
character maps in 2D video games,
geometric primitives in CAD, or
polygons or
triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC.
In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non-colline ...
s in 3D rendering. Primitives may be supported in
hardware for efficient rendering, or the building blocks provided by a
graphics application.
Rendering
Rendering is the generation of a 2D image from a 3D model by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint,
texture,
lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...
, and
shading information as a description of the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a
digital image or
raster graphics image file. The rendering program is usually built into the computer graphics software, though others are available as plug-ins or entirely separate programs. The term "rendering" may be by analogy with an "artist's rendering" of a scene. Although 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
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mo ...
. A GPU is a device able to assist the CPU in calculations. If a scene is to look relatively realistic and predictable under virtual lighting, the rendering software should solve the
rendering equation. The rendering equation does not account for all lighting phenomena, but is a general lighting model for computer-generated imagery. 'Rendering' is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing file to produce final video output.
; 3D projection
:
3D projection
A 3D projection (or graphical projection) is a design technique used to display a three-dimensional (3D) object on a two-dimensional (2D) surface. These projections rely on visual perspective and aspect analysis to project a complex object fo ...
is a method of mapping three dimensional points to a two dimensional plane. As most current methods for displaying graphical data are based on planar two dimensional media, the use of this type of projection is widespread. This method is used in most real-time 3D applications and typically uses
rasterization
In computer graphics, rasterisation (British English) or rasterization (American English) is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image (a series of pixels, dots or lines, wh ...
to produce the final image.
; Ray tracing
:
Ray tracing is a technique from the family of
image order algorithms for generating an
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...
by tracing the path of
light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 t ...
through
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...
s in an
image plane. The technique is capable of producing a high degree of
photorealism; usually higher than that of typical
scanline rendering
Scanline rendering (also scan line rendering and scan-line rendering) is an algorithm for visible surface determination, in 3D computer graphics, that works on a row-by-row basis rather than a polygon-by-polygon or pixel-by-pixel basis. All of t ...
methods, but at a greater
computational cost.
; Shading

:
Shading refers to
depicting depth in
3D model
In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of any surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software by manipulating edges, vertices, a ...
s or illustrations by varying levels of
darkness. It is a process used in drawing for depicting levels of darkness on paper by applying media more densely or with a darker shade for darker areas, and less densely or with a lighter shade for lighter areas. There are various techniques of shading including
cross hatching where perpendicular lines of varying closeness are drawn in a grid pattern to shade an area. The closer the lines are together, the darker the area appears. Likewise, the farther apart the lines are, the lighter the area appears. The term has been recently generalized to mean that
shaders are applied.
; Texture mapping
:
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color.
History
The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974.
Texture mapping ...
is a method for adding detail, surface texture, or colour to a
computer-generated graphic or
3D model
In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of any surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software by manipulating edges, vertices, a ...
. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr
Edwin Catmull
Edwin Earl "Ed" Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist who is the co-founder of Pixar and was the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, including ...
in 1974. A texture map is applied (mapped) to the surface of a shape, or polygon. This process is akin to applying patterned paper to a plain white box. Multitexturing is the use of more than one texture at a time on a polygon.
[Blythe, David. ]
Advanced Graphics Programming Techniques Using OpenGL
'' Siggraph 1999. (see
Procedural texture
In computer graphics, a procedural texture is a texture created using a mathematical description (i.e. an algorithm) rather than directly stored data. The advantage of this approach is low storage cost, unlimited texture resolution and easy text ...
s (created from adjusting parameters of an underlying algorithm that produces an output texture), and
bitmap textures (created in an
image editing application or imported from a
digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
) are, generally speaking, common methods of implementing texture definition on 3D models in computer graphics software, while intended placement of textures onto a model's surface often requires a technique known as
UV mapping (arbitrary, manual layout of texture coordinates) for
polygon surfaces, while
non-uniform rational B-spline (NURB) surfaces have their own intrinsic
parameterization used as texture coordinates. Texture mapping as a discipline also encompasses techniques for creating
normal maps and
bump maps that correspond to a texture to simulate height and
specular maps to help simulate shine and light reflections, as well as
environment mapping to simulate mirror-like reflectivity, also called gloss.
; Anti-aliasing
: Rendering resolution-independent entities (such as 3D models) for viewing on a raster (pixel-based) device such as a
liquid-crystal display
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but ...
or
CRT television inevitably causes
aliasing artifacts mostly along geometric edges and the boundaries of texture details; these artifacts are informally called "
jaggies
"Jaggies" is the informal name for artifacts in raster images, most frequently from aliasing, which in turn is often caused by non-linear mixing effects producing high-frequency components, or missing or poor anti-aliasing filtering prior to samp ...
". Anti-aliasing methods rectify such problems, resulting in imagery more pleasing to the viewer, but can be somewhat computationally expensive. Various anti-aliasing algorithms (such as
supersampling) are able to be employed, then customized for the most efficient rendering performance versus quality of the resultant imagery; a graphics artist should consider this trade-off if anti-aliasing methods are to be used. A pre-anti-aliased
bitmap texture being displayed on a screen (or screen location) at a resolution different than the resolution of the texture itself (such as a textured model in the distance from the virtual camera) will exhibit aliasing artifacts, while any
procedurally defined texture will always show aliasing artifacts as they are resolution-independent; techniques such as
mipmapping
In computer graphics, mipmaps (also MIP maps) or pyramids are pre-calculated, optimized sequences of images, each of which is a progressively lower resolution representation of the previous. The height and width of each image, or level, in th ...
and
texture filtering help to solve texture-related aliasing problems.
Volume rendering
Volume rendering is a technique used to display a
2D projection of a 3D discretely
sampled
Sample or samples may refer to:
Base meaning
* Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set
* Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal
* Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of s ...
data set A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record of t ...
. A typical 3D data set is a group of 2D slice images acquired by a
CT or
MRI
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio wave ...
scanner.
Usually these are acquired in a regular pattern (e.g., one slice every millimeter) and usually have a regular number of image
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...
s in a regular pattern. This is an example of a regular volumetric grid, with each volume element, or
voxel represented by a single value that is obtained by sampling the immediate area surrounding the voxel.
3D modeling
3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical,
wireframe representation of any three-dimensional object, called a "3D model", via specialized software. Models may be created automatically or manually; the manual modeling process of preparing geometric data for 3D computer graphics is similar to
plastic arts
Plastic arts are art forms which involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by molding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. Less often the term may be used broadly for all the visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, film and p ...
such as
sculpting. 3D models may be created using multiple approaches: use of NURBs to generate accurate and smooth surface patches,
polygonal mesh modeling (manipulation of faceted geometry), or polygonal mesh
subdivision (advanced tessellation of polygons, resulting in smooth surfaces similar to NURB models). A 3D model can be displayed as a two-dimensional image through a process called ''
3D rendering'', used in a
computer simulation
Computer simulation is the process of mathematical modelling, performed on a computer, which is designed to predict the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be det ...
of physical phenomena, or animated directly for other purposes. The model can also be physically created using
3D Printing devices.
Pioneers in computer graphics
; Charles Csuri
:
Charles Csuri
Charles Csuri (July 4, 1922 – February 27, 2022), better known as Chuck Csuri, was an American artist and computer art pioneer, described by the '' Smithsonian'' magazine as the "father of digital art and computer animation."
Biography Digita ...
is a pioneer in computer animation and digital fine art and created the first computer art in 1964. Csuri was recognized by ''
Smithsonian'' as the father of digital art and computer animation, and as a pioneer of computer animation by the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...
(MoMA) and
Association for Computing Machinery-
SIGGRAPH.
; Donald P. Greenberg
:
Donald P. Greenberg is a leading innovator in computer graphics. Greenberg has authored hundreds of articles and served as a teacher and mentor to many prominent computer graphic artists, animators, and researchers such as
Robert L. Cook,
Marc Levoy
Marc Levoy is a computer graphics researcher and Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, a vice president and Fellow at Adobe Inc., and (until 2020) a Distinguished Engineer at Google. He is ...
,
Brian A. Barsky, and
Wayne Lytle. Many of his former students have won Academy Awards for technical achievements and several have won the
SIGGRAPH Achievement Award. Greenberg was the founding director of the NSF Center for Computer Graphics and Scientific Visualization.
; A. Michael Noll
:
Noll was one of the first researchers to use a
digital computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
to create artistic patterns and to formalize the use of random processes in the creation of
visual arts
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile a ...
. He began creating digital art in 1962, making him one of the earliest digital artists. In 1965, Noll along with
Frieder Nake and
Georg Nees were the first to publicly exhibit their computer art. During April 1965, the Howard Wise Gallery exhibited Noll's computer art along with random-dot patterns by
Bela Julesz.
Other pioneers

*
Pierre Bézier
*
Jim Blinn
*
Jack Bresenham
*
John Carmack
*
Paul de Casteljau
*
Ed Catmull
*
Frank Crow
*
James D. Foley
*
William Fetter
William Fetter, also known as William Alan Fetter or Bill Fetter (March 14, 1928June 23, 2002), was an American graphic designer and pioneer in the field of computer graphics. He explored the perspective fundamentals of computer animation of a h ...
*
Henry Fuchs
*
Henri Gouraud
*
Marek Holynski
*
Charles Loop
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...
*
Nadia Magnenat Thalmann
*
Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of p ...
*
Martin Newell
*
Fred Parke
*
Bui Tuong Phong
Bui Tuong Phong (December 14, 1942 – July 1975) was a Vietnamese-born computer graphics researcher and pioneer. He invented the widely used Phong shading algorithm and Phong reflection model.
Life
Phong was born in Hanoi, then French ...
*
Steve Russell
*
Daniel J. Sandin
*
Alvy Ray Smith
*
Bob Sproull
Robert Fletcher "Bob" Sproull (born c. 1945) is an American computer scientist, who worked for Oracle Corporation where he was director of Oracle Labs in Burlington, Massachusetts. He is currently an adjunct professor at the College of Infor ...
*
Ivan Sutherland
*
Daniel Thalmann
*
Andries van Dam
*
John Warnock
*
J. Turner Whitted
*
Lance Williams
*
Jim Kajiya
Organizations
*
SIGGRAPH
*
GDC
*
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...
*
United States Armed Forces, particularly the
Whirlwind computer and
SAGE Project
*
Boeing
*
Eurographics
*
IBM
*
Renault
* The
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
department of the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University ...
*
Lucasfilm and
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began p ...
*
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartere ...
*
Adobe Systems
*
Pixar
*
Silicon Graphics,
Khronos Group
The Khronos Group, Inc. is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of 170 organizations developing, publishing and maintaining royalty-free interoperability standards for 3D graphics, virtual reality, augmented reality, parallel comput ...
&
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve har ...
* The
DirectX division at
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
*
Nvidia
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
*
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
Study of computer graphics
The
study of computer graphics is a sub-field of
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
which studies methods for digitally synthesizing and manipulating visual content. Although the term often refers to three-dimensional computer graphics, it also encompasses two-dimensional graphics and
image processing
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...
.
As an
academic discipline, computer graphics studies the manipulation of visual and geometric information using computational techniques. It focuses on the ''mathematical'' and ''computational'' foundations of image generation and processing rather than purely
aesthetic
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
issues. Computer graphics is often differentiated from the field of
visualization, although the two fields have many similarities.
Applications
Computer graphics may be used in the following areas:
*
Computational biology
Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...
*
Computational photography
*
Computational physics
Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics for which a quantitative theory already exists. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in scienc ...
*
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve ...
*
Computer simulation
Computer simulation is the process of mathematical modelling, performed on a computer, which is designed to predict the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be det ...
*
Design
*
Digital art
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media.
Since the 1960s, various name ...
*
Education
*
Graphic design
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscip ...
*
Infographics
*
Information visualization
*
Rational drug design
Drug design, often referred to as rational drug design or simply rational design, is the inventive process of finding new medications based on the knowledge of a biological target. The drug is most commonly an organic small molecule that activ ...
*
Scientific visualization
*
Special effects for
cinema
*
Video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
s
*
Virtual reality
*
Web design
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code ...
See also
*
Computer representation of surfaces
*
Glossary of computer graphics
Notes
References
Further reading
* L. Ammeraal and K. Zhang (2007). ''Computer Graphics for Java Programmers'', Second Edition, John-Wiley & Sons, .
* David Rogers (1998). ''Procedural Elements for Computer Graphics''. McGraw-Hill.
*
James D. Foley, Andries Van Dam,
Steven K. Feiner and
John F. Hughes (1995). ''
Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice''. Addison-Wesley.
* Donald Hearn and M. Pauline Baker (1994). ''Computer Graphics''. Prentice-Hall.
* Francis S. Hill (2001). ''Computer Graphics''. Prentice Hall.
* John Lewell (1985). ''Computer Graphics: A Survey of Current Techniques and Applications''. Van Nostrand Reinhold.
* Jeffrey J. McConnell (2006). ''Computer Graphics: Theory Into Practice''. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
* R. D. Parslow, R. W. Prowse, Richard Elliot Green (1969). ''Computer Graphics: Techniques and Applications''.
*
Peter Shirley and others. (2005). ''Fundamentals of computer graphics''. A.K. Peters, Ltd.
* M. Slater, A. Steed, Y. Chrysantho (2002). ''Computer graphics and virtual environments: from realism to real-time''. Addison-Wesley.
* Wolfgang Höhl (2008): Interactive environments with open-source software, Springer Wien New York,
External links
A Critical History of Computer Graphics and AnimationComputer Graphics research at UC Berkeley*
ttps://zen.yandex.ru/id/5fe7a1db1a2c45667edf2471 History of Computer Graphics on RUS
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