chmilar@calgary.UUCP (02/11/87)
I am planning to write a paper, for an "Advanced Computer Architecture" course, on graphics engines. By this, I mean machines specifically designed for graphics, rather than Crays, VAXen, etc. I would would like to know if anyone has come across any particularly interesting papers or articles about this topic, or if you have any really "spiffy" ideas of what such a beast SHOULD be like, that I could pursue. Some ideas that have occurred to me involve multi-processors, vector pipeline processors, and object oriented architectures (for animation and simulation). If you have any ideas, please mail them to me. If the response is good, I may make an edited, compressed, and otherwise summarized report and post it. As I have only a limited amount of time to do this project, it may be difficult to get info from sources that are not at hand here (ie. major journals). I also suspect that many manufacturers of graphics machine wish to keep their stuff proprietary, and will not release any details.
stroyan@hpfcdc.UUCP (02/14/87)
I suggest that you look through recent SIGGRAPH proceedings. The yearly proceedings commonly feature the designs for state of the art high performance graphics systems. For instance the 1982 proceedings detail the Silicon Graphics geometry engine design. The 1986 proceedings feature the experimental Pixel Powers system from University of North Carolina and the shaded polygon rendering chip from the Hewlett-Packard 320SRX system. Mike Stroyan, hpfcla!stroyan