REALISM IN THREE-DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICS Many computer graphics applications involve the display of three-dimensional objects and scenes.

For example, computer-aided design systems allow their users to manipulate models of machined components, automobile bodies and aircraft parts; simulation systems present a continuously moving picture of a three-dimensional world to the pilot of a ship or aircraft. These applications differ from two-dimensional applications not only in the added dimension: they also require concern for realism in the display of objects. In applications like simulation, a high degree of realism may be essential to the program's success. Producing a realistic image of a three-dimensional scene on a two- dimensional display presents many problems. How is depth, the third dimension, to be displayed on the screen? How are parts of objects that are hidden by other objects to be identified and removed from the image? How can lighting, colour, shadows, and texture contribute to the rendering? Indeed, how is the three-dimensional world to be modelled in a computer so that images can be generated? A growing number of techniques have been developed to address these questions. The need for modelling and image-generation techniques stems from requirements imposed by applications. To communicate information to a user, the application program generates an image, which must show the information clearly, without ambiguity, and with as little extraneous information as possible. The range of imaging requirements is illustrated by the following list of applications: 1. Molecular modelling. Chemists wish to build three-dimensional models of molecules in order to understand better their behaviour. These models are usually obtained indirectly, by observing the three-dimensional electron density in a crystal and then inferring where atoms of the molecule must lie. The model is built interactively by adding atoms one at a time, orienting bonds according to the electron-density information. Realism is not an important objective in generating images of atoms in molecules-no one has ever seen such a structure! An abstract "stick." model communicates the essential spatial relationships between atoms. Sometimes more realistic spherical models are used to indicate the size of an atom's electron shell. It is important, however, that these images display depth relationships between atoms in order to communicate to the chemist the precise three- dimensional structure of the molecule. 2. Computer .aided design (CAD). Computer-generated images are used to help design automobiles, ships, airplanes, oil refineries, mechanical parts, etc. Images used in these applications must offer enough realism for the designer to evaluate a design: the airframe designer must visualize the shape of a wing to judge aerodynamic properties; the designer of a car body is concerned with both aesthetic and aerodynamic properties of its shape. These two applications thus require realistic portrayals of shape. Other CAD uses may present different needs: the designer of a part for a lawn mower may be more concerned with how the part fits with its neighbours than with details of its shape. 3. Animation Sequences of pictures that educate or explain may require images of three-dimensional objects. Although animation uses graphics as much for art as for realism, it depends heavily on motion to substitute for realism of an individual image. Inexpensive animation communicates depth information with "2 &1/2dimensional" images-opaque images painted on a few transparencies that slide relative to each other, thus allowing one image to appear closer to the observer than another. 4. Simulation: Some simulation applications require extreme realism, including moving images. A daylight flight simulator that uses computer- generated images of the view from the cockpit must generate very realistic pictures-pilots seem to depend for depth perception on subtle visual cues, such as skid marks on a runway. A similar form of simulator is used to train ship captains to manoeuvre their ships in a harbour; a complex harbour scene, including other ships in motion, sometimes obscured by fog, is presented on a very large display in front of a simulated bridge of a ship. Not all simulation applications demand such realistic images. A simulation of the motion of a collection of atoms governed by inter atomic forces might produce images in which atoms are shown simply as circular profiles of spheres. These applications indicate the range of image types required of a graphics display.