frame, Set of connected triangles described by vertices A through F. A triangle fan is a

primitive Primitive may refer to: Mathematics * Primitive element (field theory) * Primitive element (finite field) * Primitive cell (crystallography) * Primitive notion, axiomatic systems * Primitive polynomial (disambiguation), one of two concepts * Pr ...

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 t ...

that saves on storage and processing time. It describes a set of connected

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- colli ...

s that share one central

vertex Vertex, vertices or vertexes may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics and computer science *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines, or edges meet *Vertex (computer graphics), a data structure that describes the position ...

(unlike the triangle strip that connects the next vertex point to the last two used vertices to form a triangle), possibly within a

triangle mesh In computer graphics, a triangle mesh is a type of polygon mesh. It comprises a set of triangles (typically in three dimensions) that are connected by their common edges or vertices. Many graphics software packages and hardware devices can ...

. If is the number of triangles in the fan, the number of vertices describing it is . This is a considerable improvement over the vertices that are necessary to describe the triangles separately. The

graphics pipeline In computer graphics, a computer graphics pipeline, rendering pipeline or simply graphics pipeline, is a conceptual model that describes what steps a graphics system needs to perform to render a 3D scene to a 2D screen. Once ...

can take advantage by only performing the viewing transformations and lighting calculations once per vertex. Triangle fans are deprecated in Direct3D10 and later. Any

convex polygon In geometry, a convex polygon is a polygon that is the boundary of a convex set. This means that the line segment between two points of the polygon is contained in the union of the interior and the boundary of the polygon. In particular, it is a ...

may be triangulated as a single fan, by arbitrarily selecting any point inside it as the center.

References

Computer graphics {{Compu-graphics-stub

See also

References