More powerful and sophisticated ways to create and display 3-D computer graphics are appearing right before your eyes
Edmund X. DeJesus, Senior Editor
Displaying 3-D objects on a 2-D screen has always been a special challenge. We want computers to be a window on the worlds of reality and imagination, and we judge few things so impressive as well-done 3-D graphics.
As interest in remarkable 3-D graphics in applications and entertainment continues to grow, so does interest in the standards programmers use to create these 3-D wonders. These new and emerging standards include OpenGL, QuickDraw 3D, and others. In "3-D Steps Forward," John Foust examines the characteristics of standard APIs, file formats, and languages. Considerations include platform support and capabilities, 3-D standards in O
Ses, and hardware manifestations. As president of Syndesis, whose Interchange software translates between over 30 3-D graphics file formats, Foust brings considerable 3-D graphics expertise and experience to this overview of emerging standards.
Those standards can help bring inanimate data to life on-screen. Financial data visualization software helps stock analysts and other financial experts keep track of a blizzard of numbers and statistics, acquired in real time from a variety of sources, and represent them in ways that are immediately understandable. In "Assets in Wonderland," David Baum looks at new software products out on the rim of virtual reality that can display this information in new and more useful forms. The 3-D color animated images change as the data does. Trends may manifest themselves as differences in size, color, or motion. Baum has written about scientists using such visualization software before. Now the technology is becoming more mainstream and more applicable to the kinds of d
ata-handling problems we all face.
To some, more serious even than money is entertainment. Surprisingly, most of the 3-D graphics for television and films is born on computers not so different from what you have on your desk, with off-the-shelf software. Grant Boucher's "Desktop Hollywood F/X" shows how studios create astonishing effects with fairly modest machines. He works on challenging computer animation for TV shows, including "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Seaquest DSV" for Steven Spielberg's Amblin Imaging effects company.
With the synergy of hardware, software, and human imagination, 3-D computer graphics technology is becoming more mature, more real, and so easily accessible you might find yourself trying out some 3-D projects on your own.
3-D Graphics Technology
