Fast, Low Memory Z-Buffering when Performing Medium-Quality Rendering

Eric Haines
3D/EYE

Steven Worley
Worley Laboratories

This paper appears in issue Volume 1, Number 3.
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Abstract

This article presents algorithms which both improve performance and decrease memory costs when using a Z-buffer for medium-quality rendering. The crux of the method is to perform rendering in two passes; the first quickly renders only Z-depth values, the second does all shading calculations. This method allows the reuse of memory used to store the Z-depths and colors, as only one of these two values is needed at any given moment for any given pixel. It also eliminates all unnecessary shading/shadowing/texturing calls, which typically take the majority of computation time in medium-quality algorithms.

Author Information

Eric Haines, 3D/EYE, 1050 Craft Road, Ithaca, NY 14850 erich@acm.org

Steven Worley, Worley Laboratories, 405 El Camino Real, Suite 121, Menlo Park, CA 94025 steve@worley.com

BibTeX Entry

@article{HainesWorley96,
  author = "Eric Haines and Steven Worley",
  title = "Fast, Low Memory Z-Buffering when Performing Medium-Quality Rendering",
  journal = "journal of graphics tools",
  volume = "1",
  number = "3",
  pages = "1-5",
  year = "1996",
}