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13
Programming 3D
Graphics in
Real Time
Three-dimensional graphics have come a long way in the last 10 years or so.
Computer games look fantastically realistic on even an off-the-shelf home
PC, and there is no reason why an interactive virtual environment cannot do
so, too. The interactivity achievable in any computer game is exactly what is
required for a virtual environment even if it will be in a larger scale. Using
the hardware acceleration of some of the graphics display devices mentioned
in Chapter 12, this is easy to achieve. We will postpone examining the pro-
grammability of the display adapters until Chapter 14 and look now at how
to