Three Dimensional Computer Graphics

Abstract

One purpose for a computer graphics display system is to improve interaction between man and machine. A user may have designed an object which he wants to "see" in three dimensions at different angles, but he has neither the time nor resources to build either the object of a physical model of it. Through the use of the graphics system, he would be able to examine the object merely by specifying its shape using coordinates in three-space, and feeding this information to the graphics system. This project has produced such a system: a set of FORTRAN sub-routines currently being run on the PDP-10 at the University of Utah from a remote PDP-9/UNIVAC 1559 system at Montana State University. Within what is hoped to be a minimum of restrictions, a user can specify a set of three-dimensional data and, with one call to a subroutine, display a perspective view of his data, viewed from any angle and any distance. One restriction on the data is that it must consist of linear elements, that is it must only contain straight lines.