Glossary 55
Saturation
Amount of gray in a color determining the intensity and purity of a color. A color
with a high saturation value is optically very intensive. A color with a low saturation
value appears weak (i.e. with less color content).
Scalability
The existence of independent, high-speed connections between the CPU, graphics
board, and system memory means that applications developers can improve the
functionality and performance of their software by taking more advantage of how
they use all these components in conjunction with each other.
Scaling
Transformation of image data to different sizes.
Shading (Flat, Gouraud, Phong)
Shading or rendering is a way to define the colors on curved surfaces in order to
give an object a natural appearance. To achieve this, the surfaces are subdivided into
many small triangles. The three most important 3-D shading methods differ in the
algorithm used to apply to these triangles:
- Flat shading: In this simplest method each triangle gets one single color, resulting in
a faceted appearance of the surface.
- Gouraud shading: The color shades on a triangle are calculated by interpolating the
vertex colors, resulting in a smooth appearance of the surface.
- Phong shading: The color shades on a triangle are calculated by interpolating the
vertex colors, additionally regarding the normal vector at each triangle (i.e. its
orientation in space).
Single screen
DOS screen and high-resolution graphics screen appear on the same monitor.
Stencil
Special information for each pixel, whether and how it is drawn and redrawn.
Sync
Stable condition which exists when two repetitive events maintain a constant time
relationship; your monitor is in sync with the signals from your board when the
display is correct and stable.
Texture mapping
Wrapping a bitmap around an object, including perspective correction, for example a
wallpaper on a wall or a wood texture on furniture. A video can also be used as
texture map.
TrueColor
Ability to display 16.7 million simultaneous colors (24 or 32 bits per pixel). Color
information saved in display memory is not translated by look-up table, but passed
directly to the D/A converter. Thus full color information must be saved for each
pixel. It is believed that the human eye can discern no more than 16.7 million colors.
See 'palette'.
Summary of Contents for FIRE GL1
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