Hughes/Computer Graphics, 3/E

Chapter 1. Introduction

This chapter introduces computer graphics quite broadly and from several perspectives: its applications, the various fields that are involved in the study of graphics, some of the tools that make the images produced by graphics so effective, some numbers to help you understand the scales at which computer graphics works, and the elementary ideas required to write your first graphics program. We’ll discuss many of these topics in more detail elsewhere in the book.

1.1. An Introduction to Computer Graphics

Computer graphics is the science and art of communicating visually via a computer’s display and its interaction devices. The visual aspect of the communication is usually in the computer-to-human direction, with the human-to-computer ...