[comp.sys.next] NeXTdimension programming

andrey@beyond.cs.caltech.edu (Andre T. Yew) (09/22/90)

	So do any of you who've seen the color NeXT or have literature on it
know how to do that 30,000 Gouraud-shaded triangles per second programming?
I assume there's nothing yet like Silicon Graphics' GL (otherwise everyone
would be talking about it :-).  Also, what does that 30,000 polygon figure
mean?  I know it's a Gouraud-shaded triangle, but is it 3D (I guess Gouraud
shading would imply this), is it lit, is it valid for arbitrary orientation?
Is there a limit on the number of light-sources?  How many 3D vectors can it 
draw per second? 
	Any info would be greatly appreciated.  BTW, I'm interested in the
24-bit performance, not the 16-bit thing, but then again, the NeXTdimension
board can't do any less.

--
						Andre Yew
						andrey@through.cs.caltech.edu
						       (131.215.128.1)

gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel) (09/22/90)

In <ANDREY.90Sep21132821@beyond.cs.caltech.edu> andrey@beyond.cs.caltech.edu (Andre T. Yew) writes:


>	So do any of you who've seen the color NeXT or have literature on it
>know how to do that 30,000 Gouraud-shaded triangles per second programming?
>I assume there's nothing yet like Silicon Graphics' GL (otherwise everyone
>would be talking about it :-).  Also, what does that 30,000 polygon figure
>mean?  I know it's a Gouraud-shaded triangle, but is it 3D (I guess Gouraud
>shading would imply this), is it lit, is it valid for arbitrary orientation?
>Is there a limit on the number of light-sources?  How many 3D vectors can it 
>draw per second? 
>	Any info would be greatly appreciated.  BTW, I'm interested in the
>24-bit performance, not the 16-bit thing, but then again, the NeXTdimension
>board can't do any less.

>--
>						Andre Yew
>						andrey@through.cs.caltech.edu
>						       (131.215.128.1)

That, I beleive, is what the i860 can do using it's builtin z-buffer, builtin
shading, and builtin pixel operations can do.

The color NeXT doesn't seem to have the option of a z-buffer, although one
could be easilly implemented in the local ram of the i860. I don't know if
it's any slower.


Dan



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