CS426 Lecture/Video 7 Graphics Pipeline

Flashcards generated from lecture notes on the graphics pipeline, covering topics from camera transformations to skyboxes and orientation.

Camera

Converts the 3D world (models) to a 2D image (raster).

Transformation Pipeline

Object Coordinates -> Eye Coordinates -> Clip Coordinates -> Normalised Device Coordinates -> Windows Coordinates

Basic Transformations

Translate, Rotate, Scale

World Transform

Maps model coordinates to world coordinates, accounting for scale, rotation, and translation.

View Transform

Maps world coordinates to camera space, based on camera position, look direction, and up/down orientation.

Projection Transform

Maps camera space to the view plane (3D to 2D), projecting the 3D scene onto a 2D plane.

Backface Culling

Renders only triangles facing the camera (clockwise vertices).

Clipping

Renders only vertices inside the camera's view frustum.

Lighting

Ambient, Diffuse, Specular lighting calculations.

Rasterization

Shading triangles, applying textures, and using Z-buffer for depth sorting.

Perspective Divide

After matrix multiplications, homogeneous coordinates are rescaled so that w=1.

Viewport Transform

Maps 2D coordinates to the display or application window.

Standard Sphere Model

Vertices recorded in a clockwise winding order on the surface of the sphere. Anticlockwise vertices are culled.

Skysphere

Mesh contains vertices with a reversed winding order, the rear internal face of the sphere is rendered and visible, with the camera typically inside the sphere.

Back-face or Triangle Culling

The graphics card's ability to ignore (not render) triangles whose vertices are not defined in a clockwise order.

Skydome

A hemisphere mesh with a plane base, used to simulate sky and ground.

Sky Box

An object with the winding order reversed, the sky box provides a background to the 3D world from all views.

Orientation

Yaw, Pitch, and Roll

Yaw, Pitch, Roll

Angles describing rotation around the Z, Y, and X axes, respectively.

Euler Angles

Yaw (), Pitch () and Roll (ω)

Gimbal Lock

Occurs when the xy and XY planes align.

Modelview Matrix

Transformation of geometry from model to view space, including camera view.

Projection Matrix

Transformation of geometry from view to clipping space, using perspective or orthographic projection.