An introductory tour of interactive rendering

Given the depth and breadth of the field of interactive rendering, an article summarizing all the significant algorithms and hardware developments in the past few years would become a long yet shallow litany of taxonomies and terms. Instead, the author uses a selection of topics from various areas to illustrate this central theme: the influence of 3D graphics hardware on algorithm design. This article provides an understanding of consumer-level personal graphics processors and a sense of how different algorithms are developed in response to their capabilities.