ON The Insider:
Jessica Simpson Gets Booed
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| alpha blending | A technique used to
describe levels of transparency. For example, glass can
be completely transparent, while stained glass is very
translucent. |
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| anti-aliasing | The process of smoothing
out lines and edges, making them perfectly straight. |
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| API | This stands for
"Application Programmer's Interface." A
developer can use a specific API to develop a standard
application more easily. |
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| ASIC | "Application-Specific
Integrated Circuit." In the case of 3-D boards, it
is the chip that drives all of the supported 3-D
operations. |
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| bi-linear filtering | A sophisticated texture
mapping technique, that, instead of just plopping down
the same texel in a give texture map, will actually take
the average of several texels around the original map,
eliminating the blockiness that can occur when an image
changes perspective. |
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| chipset | The entire set of ASICS
on the board, including the main 3D ASIC, the RAMDAC, and
whatever else is necessary to drive the product. |
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| device independence | The ability, within an
operating environment, to make generic calls to hardware
and know that any piece of hardware, regardless of
vendor, when properly installed, will react properly to
that call. |
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| Direct3D | A Microsoft low and
high-level API that allows game developers to build games
in a similar fashion. |
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| frame rate | The number of frames per
second that are being rendered. |
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| Gouraud shading | A shading technique in
which different colors are used along a polygonal
object's edges, making the sharp points appear round and
smooth. |
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| megapixels | Millions of pixels |
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| MIP mapping | The process of having and
using texture maps of several different resolutions in a
single scene. |
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| PCI | This stands for
"peripheral component interconnect." It's a
standard way in which information can travel around the
computer and that third-party board developers can rely
on to build their products according to a certain size. |
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| pixel | A dot on the screen of a
certain color. It's thousands of these dots together that
make an image. |
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| point sampling | A simple texturing method
which simply places the corresponding texels onto the
image. This method can cause blockiness in the frame. |
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| polygon | The most primitive
building block of a model's shape. |
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| RAMDAC | The chip on a graphics
board that converts the digital pixel information into
analogue voltages to be sent out to control the monitor. |
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| RISC | A "reduced
instruction set computer" which, when programmed
into a chip, performs floating point mathematical
operations quickly, ideal for geometry setup during a 3D
scene. |
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| texel | The same as a pixel,
except it's a single pixel that comes specifically from a
texture map. |
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| texture mapping | The process of overlaying
pictures or bitmaps on a 3D object, causes it to appear
realistic. |
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| tri-linear filtering | Similar to bi-linear
filtering, but instead of weighing the average of local
texels from a single bitmap texture, averages are taken
from two bitmaps. |
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| VESA local bus | Another architecture
(along with PCI) that outlines the pathways for computer
components to talk to each other. Also a standard for
hardware developers to build internal peripherals. |
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| z-buffering | The process of storing
the depth location for each pixel in memory so an
application knows just which pixels to send to the frame
buffer and which to withhold. |
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