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Render Output Unit
In computer graphics, the render output unit or raster operations pipeline (ROP) is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipelines take pixel (each pixel is a dimensionless point) and texel information and process it, via specific matrix and vector operations, into a final pixel or depth value; this process is called rasterization. Thus, ROPs control antialiasing, when more than one sample is merged into one pixel. The ROPs perform the transactions between the relevant buffers in the local memory – this includes writing or reading values, as well as blending them together. Dedicated antialiasing hardware used to perform hardware-based antialiasing methods like MSAA is contained in ROPs. All data rendered has to travel through the ROP in order to be written to the framebuffer, from there it can be transmitted to the display. Therefore, the ROP is where the GPU ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Graphics
Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. 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 graphics hardware, 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, computer generated imagery (CGI). The non-artistic aspects of computer graphics are the subject of Computer graphics (computer science), computer science research. Some topics in computer graphics include user interface design, Sprite (computer graphics), sprite graphics, raster graphics, Rendering (computer graph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Local Memory
This glossary of computer hardware terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts related to computer hardware, i.e. the physical and structural components of computers, architectural issues, and peripheral devices. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Z See also *List of computer term etymologies *Glossary of backup terms *Glossary of computer graphics This is a glossary of terms relating to computer graphics. For more general c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bit Blit
Bit blit (also written BITBLT, BIT BLT, BitBLT, Bit BLT, Bit Blt etc., which stands for ''bit block transfer'') is a data operation commonly used in computer graphics in which several bitmaps are combined into one using a ''boolean function''. The operation involves at least two bitmaps: a "source" (or "foreground") and a "destination" (or "background"), and possibly a third that is often called the "mask". The result may be written to a fourth bitmap, though often it replaces the destination. The pixels of each are combined using a program-selectable ''raster operation'', a bit-wise boolean formula. The most obvious raster operation overwrites the destination with the source. Others may involve AND, OR, XOR, and NOT operations. The Commodore Amiga's graphics chipset (and others) could combine three source bitmaps using any of the 256 possible 3-input boolean functions. Modern graphics software has almost completely replaced bitwise operations with more general mathematical o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Execution Unit
In computer engineering, an execution unit (E-unit or EU) is a part of a processing unit that performs the operations and calculations forwarded from the instruction unit. It may have its own internal control sequence unit (not to be confused with a CPU's main control unit), some registers, and other internal units such as an arithmetic logic unit, address generation unit, floating-point unit, load–store unit, branch execution unit or other smaller and more specific components, and can be tailored to support a certain datatype, such as integers An integer is the number zero (0), a positive natural number (1, 2, 3, ...), or the negation of a positive natural number (−1, −2, −3, ...). The negations or additive inverses of the positive natural numbers are referred to as negative in ... or floating-points. It is common for modern processing units to have multiple parallel functional units within its execution units, which is referred to as superscalar design. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stream Processing
In computer science, stream processing (also known as event stream processing, data stream processing, or distributed stream processing) is a programming paradigm which views Stream (computing), streams, or sequences of events in time, as the central input and output objects of computation. Stream processing encompasses dataflow programming, reactive programming, and Distributed computing, distributed data processing. Stream processing systems aim to expose parallel computing, parallel processing for data streams and rely on streaming algorithms for efficient implementation. The Solution stack, software stack for these systems includes components such as programming models and query languages, for expressing computation; data stream management system, stream management systems, for distribution and scheduling (computing), scheduling; and hardware components for hardware acceleration, acceleration including floating-point units, graphics processing units, and field-programmable gate a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shader
In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene—a process known as '' shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of specialized functions in computer graphics special effects and video post-processing, as well as general-purpose computing on graphics processing units. Traditional shaders calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility. Most shaders are coded for (and run on) a graphics processing unit (GPU), though this is not a strict requirement. ''Shading languages'' are used to program the GPU's rendering pipeline, which has mostly superseded the fixed-function pipeline of the past that only allowed for common geometry transforming and pixel-shading functions; with shaders, customized effects can be used. The position and color ( hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast) of all pixels, vertices, and/or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texture Mapping Unit
In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a process called texture mapping. In modern graphics cards it is implemented as a discrete stage in a graphics pipeline, whereas when first introduced it was implemented as a separate processor, e.g. as seen on the Voodoo2 graphics card. Background and history The TMU came about due to the compute demands of sampling and transforming a flat image (as the texture map) to the correct angle and perspective it would need to be in 3D space. The compute operation is a large matrix multiply, which CPUs of the time (early Pentiums for example) could not cope with at an acceptable level of performance. In 2013, TMUs are part of the shader pipeline and decoupled from the Render Output Pipelines (ROPs). For example, in AMD's Cypress GPU, each s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitmap
In computing, a bitmap (also called raster) graphic is an image formed from rows of different colored pixels. A GIF is an example of a graphics image file that uses a bitmap. As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a particular bitmapping application: the pix-map, which refers to a map of pixels, where each pixel may store more than two colors, thus using more than one bit per pixel. In such a case, the domain in question is the array of pixels which constitute a digital graphic output device (a screen or monitor). In some contexts, the term ''bitmap'' implies one bit per pixel, whereas ''pixmap'' is used for images with multiple bits per pixel. A bitmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term ''bitmap'' comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a ''map of bits'', a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with ''pixmap'', it commonly refers to the similar concept of a spatially mapp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Framebuffer
A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Modern video cards contain framebuffer circuitry in their cores. This circuitry converts an in-memory bitmap into a video signal that can be displayed on a computer monitor. In computing, a screen buffer is a part of computer memory used by a computer application for the representation of the content to be shown on the computer display. The screen buffer may also be called the video buffer, the regeneration buffer, or regen buffer for short. Screen buffers should be distinguished from video memory. To this end, the term off-screen buffer is also used. The information in the buffer typically consists of color values for every pixel to be shown on the display. Color values are commonly stored in 1-bit binary (monochrome), 4-bit palettized, 8 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multisample Anti-aliasing
Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) is a type of spatial anti-aliasing, a technique used in computer graphics to remove jaggies. It is an optimization of supersampling, where only the necessary parts are sampled more. Jaggies are only noticed in a small area, so the area is quickly found, and only that is anti-aliased. Definition The term generally refers to a special case of supersampling. Initial implementations of full-scene anti-aliasing ( FSAA) worked conceptually by simply rendering a scene at a higher resolution, and then downsampling to a lower-resolution output. Most modern GPUs are capable of this form of anti-aliasing, but it greatly taxes resources such as texture, bandwidth, and fillrate. (If a program is highly TCL-bound or CPU-bound, supersampling can be used without much performance hit.) According to the OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buffer (computer Science)
In computer science, a data buffer (or just buffer) is a region of memory used to store data temporarily while it is being moved from one place to another. Typically, the data is stored in a buffer as it is retrieved from an input device (such as a microphone) or just before it is sent to an output device (such as speakers); however, a buffer may be used when data is moved between processes within a computer, comparable to buffers in telecommunication. Buffers can be implemented in a fixed memory location in hardware or by using a virtual data buffer in software that points at a location in the physical memory. In all cases, the data stored in a data buffer is stored on a physical storage medium. The majority of buffers are implemented in software, which typically use RAM to store temporary data because of its much faster access time when compared with hard disk drives. Buffers are typically used when there is a difference between the rate at which data is received and the rate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphics Processing Unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles. GPUs were later found to be useful for non-graphic calculations involving embarrassingly parallel problems due to their parallel structure. The ability of GPUs to rapidly perform vast numbers of calculations has led to their adoption in diverse fields including artificial intelligence (AI) where they excel at handling data-intensive and computationally demanding tasks. Other non-graphical uses include the training of neural networks and cryptocurrency mining. History 1970s Arcade system boards have used specialized graphics circuits since the 1970s. In early video game hardware, RAM for frame buffers was expensive, so video chips composited data together as the display was being scann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
