Abstract
M.Sc.
The domain of computer graphics has undergone phenomenal changes and improvements
over the past decade, to the extent that photorealistic renderings have now become
possible. Evidence of the vast potential of such renderings is all too clear in movies such
as The Titanic. In the manufacturing arena, however, it is rarely required to produce
visualisations of this quality. The rendered image is, in fact, required merely to visualise
the required data set effectively and unambiguously, a requirement that can be met
without reverting to the latest rendering algorithms.
What is considered more important, however, is the functionality that has become
available to the user. Virtual-reality-type interfaces and displays, real-time object
manipulation and interactive measuring utilities are but a few functions required
effectively to reduce costs during the design phase of a project. Although handy, the latter
functions serves exponentially to multiply the processing requirements of the underlying
hardware platform. In order, therefore, to ensure that interactiveness be maintained, some
rendering techniques may have to be omitted so as to render the visualised scene
unambiguously.
Traditionally, visualisations required specialised graphics workstations. Although this
requirement still obtains to medium- and large-scale visualisations, the PC industry has
seen a dramatic increase in computing power, to the extent that it might be possible to
implement small-scale visualisations at PC level soon.
DirectX constitutes a set of graphics libraries developed by Microsoft as a standard for
game developers and video accelerator manufacturers. Although DirectX has very rarely
been implemented in a non-gaming environment, it is possible through the use of effects
such as texture mapping and Gourad shading, which effects are supported by DirectX, to
create a small-scale visualisation of acceptable rendering quality. If this could be
achieved, companies could use their existing computers to implement visualisations of
this kind. In so doing, visualisation capabilities would be made available to a much
bigger segment of the market.