Real-time computer graphics
Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface (GUI) to real-time image analysis, but is most often used in reference to interactive 3D computer graphics, typically using a graphics processing unit (GPU). One example of this concept is a video game that rapidly renders changing 3D environments to produce an illusion of motion.
Virtual reality render of a river from 2000
Virtual environment at University of Illinois, 2001
Music visualizations are generated in real-time.
Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great deal of specialized hardware and software has been developed, with the displays of most devices being driven by computer graphics hardware. It is a vast and recently developed area of computer science. The phrase was coined in 1960 by computer graphics researchers Verne Hudson and William Fetter of Boeing. It is often abbreviated as CG, or typically in the context of film as computer generated imagery (CGI). The non-artistic aspects of computer graphics are the subject of computer science research.
A Blender screenshot displaying the 3D test model Suzanne
Spacewar! running on the Computer History Museum's PDP-1
Quarxs, series poster, Maurice Benayoun, François Schuiten, 1992
A screenshot from the videogame Killing Floor, built in Unreal Engine 2. Personal computers and console video games took a great graphical leap forward in the 2000s, becoming able to display graphics in real time computing that had previously only been possible pre-rendered and/or on business-level hardware.