The Dictionary of Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality

179 Pages·1995·16.079 MB·English

by  Roy Latham

The Dictionary of
Computer Graphics
and Virtual Reality
Second Edition
Roy Latham
The Dictionary of
Computer Graphics
and Virtual Reality
Second Edition
With 18 Diagrams
Springer-Verlag
New York Berlin Heidelberg London Paris
Tokyo Hong Kong Barcelona Budapest
Roy Latham
Computer Graphics Systems
Development Corporation
Mountain View, CA 94043-2350
USA
The first edition of this work, published in 1991, was entitled The Dictionary o/Computer Graphics
Technology and Applications.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roy Latham.
The dictionary of computer graphics and virtual reality /
Roy Latham. - 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN -13: 978-0-387-94405-0 e-ISBN -13 :978-1-4613-8443-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4613-8443-4
1. Computer graphics-Dictionaries. 2. Virtual reality
Dictionaries. I. Title.
T385.L38 1995
006.6'03--dc20 94-36569
Printed on acid-free paper.
© 1995, 1991 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written
permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in con
nection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software,
or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if the
former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by
the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone.
Production managed by Laura Carlson; manufacturing supervised by Genieve Shaw.
Photocomposed copy prepared from the author's file.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN -13: 978-0-387-94405-0
Contents
Using This Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Dictionary of Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality . . . . . 1
Word List ...................................... 158
Bibliography .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 168
v
Using This Dictionary
What's Included
This dictionary is a revised expansion of the author's earlier Dictionary of
Computer Graphics Technology and Applications. The main addition is the
new terminology related to virtual reality, as rich a source of new jargon
as any around. New terminology has been added for robotics and
telepresence, especially insofar as they are allied with virtual reality.
More terminology has been added in the field of networked simulation,
another growth area.
Some terminology from the previous work related to companies and
products-hot items just a few years ago but now passe-has been
dropped. Some publishing terminology has been swept out on the
grounds that it now belongs to its own specialists.
This dictionary is designed for both relative novices and profes
sionals working with computer graphics and virtual reality. Those new
to the field are struck by the maze of jargon posing an obstacle to
understanding. Those who know their specialty well are confronted by
new frontiers of terminology in dealing with applications areas or with
specialists in different areas. A person who is an expert in, say, desktop
publishing, will rarely need this dictionary to translate the jargon of that
area, but may find it useful in unraveling the claims of competing
graphics hardware.
Terminology is included from allied technologies including image
processing, electronics, general computing, video, hardware engineer
ing, software engineering, workstations, color science, and project
management. Terms from allied technologies are included to serve
developers of products, who may be served by definitions even if the
terms are not strictly a part of computer graphics or virtual reality
applications. Also included are key terms from the most widespread
application areas of computer graphics, including desktop publishing,
animation, scientific visualization, electrical and mechanical computer
aided design, and business graphics.
One of the challenges of putting together this dictionary has been
deciding what to include and what to exclude. Ultimately, the test has
been to include terms that are most likely to be faced by computer
graphics developers and users, and those that are most likely to be
unfamiliar or cause confusion.
vii
viii Using This Dictionary
The most difficult cases for inclusion and exclusion are companies
and products. Leaving these out altogether would omit a great deal of
importance, since many people need knowledge about the workings of
the industry. But including certain companies and products leads to
leaving out others, and there is always a risk of unknowingly excluding
something or someone important in a particular specialty. Also, the
fortunes of products and companies can change overnight. Conse
quently, relatively few companies and products are included, but I hope
enough are included to give a sense of the industry and the products
that are offered.
An objective of this dictionary is to provide definitions comprising
only other entries in the dictionary, in the senses defined, plus standard
English. Consequently, insofar as this objective has been achieved,
reference to a standard dictionary should resolve the meanings of terms
not defined here.
Abbreviations
Most of the alphabet soup that people, myself included, call acronyms
are really abbreviations, an acronym being the crowning achievement of
an abbreviation reaching the status of a full-blown word, like radar,
spelled out in lower case. In this dictionary, abbreviations are decoded
into the word sequence from which they were derived and then defined
under the same entry. Attaching the definition to the abbreviation rather
than the word sequence is done on the grounds that it was probably the
acronym that was encountered by the reader rather than the spelled-out
version. The few exceptions are when an acronym is used less frequently
than its full version.
Abbreviations are alphabetized as if they were words, rather than
being entered at the start of the listings for each letter. Words beginning
with numbers are alphabetized as if the number was spelled out, for
example "3-D" is alphabetized as if it were "three-D." However,
numbers not at the beginning of a word are alphabetized as if the digits
"0 ... 9" preceded "a"; this, for example, yields PO, PI, and P2 as
sequential entries. Terms having two or more words are alphabetized
ignoring the blanks separating the words.
Pronunciation and Parts of Speech
Pronunciation is provided in backslashes after the word for entries
where standard English does not apply, for example WYSIWYG
\wizzy-wig\. Letters to be pronounced individually by name, as often
occurs in abbreviations, are capitalized and separated by dashes. For
example, EEPROM has the first two Es pronounced as the name of the
U sing This Dictionary ix
letter E and PROM pronounced as a word, \E-E-prom\. Other
pronunciations are given by approximating the sounds with English
words or fragments whose pronunciations are less ambiguous.
The part of speech is provided, abbreviated and in italics. (The
abbreviations are noun n., transitive verb v.t., intransitive verb v.i.,
adjective adj., and preposition prep.) Notes about the origin, technical
discipline, or alternate spelling are sometimes included in square
brackets after the word or pronunciation.
File Name Extensions
File name extensions are codes of typically three letters added to the
right-hand side of a period when naming a file on a computer. Certain
extensions have achieved a degree of standardization in signifying how
the data contained in the file should be interpreted. In fact, sometimes
the extension ends up as the only clue as to how the file should be
interpreted.
Accordingly, a number of these common extensions are included for
reference. To help distinguish these bits of computer esoterica from
ordinary words or abbreviations, a sans-serif typeface is used for entries
that correspond to file name extensions, for example: PIC.
Alternates and Cross-References
There are variations in fine points of spelling for a number of common
computer graphics terms, for example, scan line vs. scanline vs. scan-line.
In such cases, I have attempted to accumulate one or two dozen citations
by different authors in scholarly works and to use the most common as
the main entry. Alternates are listed if they appear at least twice and in
more than 10 percent of the total number of occurrences. A similar but
somewhat stricter rule is used for alternate meanings.
Technical people are fond of creating product names that have
unexpected capital letters in the middle of a word, combine capital
letters and small capitals, or make interesting use of subscripts and
superscripts. I have tried to preserve these as intended by their
originators, but except for the mixtures of upper and lower case, which
are easy to reproduce, few people other than the originators attempt
such care.
Cross-references are provided to synonymous and related terms. The
cross-referenced terms are given in all capitals. Synonymous terms or
definitions appear after a colon. Related terms that bear directly on the
definition of the term follow the key construct "-See," or if less directly
related "-See also." Terms for opposites or for competing methods
follow "-Compare."
x Using This Dictionary
References and Word List
Appended to this dictionary is a bibliography providing a good set of
basic reference texts for those wishing fuller expositions of many of the
terms and concepts introduced in this dictionary. These texts provide
hundreds of additional references to the subject-matter literature. Also
appended is an expanded word list designed to facilitate the
spell-checking of words often omitted from spelling lists for general use.
Corrections and Additions
Computer graphics is just now approaching middle age as a discipline.
Not all of the terminology has settled into standard usage. This
dictionary attempts to conform to the most widely adopted usage and to
suggest known alternatives. Readers, however, must be alert to local
variations in usage.
The attributions made for the origins of terms are based on the earliest
reference found, or upon a similar attribution made by someone else. In
only a few cases have the cited originators explicitly noted coining the
terminology, so it is, in many cases, possible that the terminology
predated the particular appearance in print. The author would be
grateful to readers who can contribute knowledge of the origins or
history of the terminology, or who otherwise note corrections or
additions to this dictionary.
The author may be reached via the Internet electronic-mail network
with the address [email protected], or by writing in care of
the publisher.
Acknowledgments
I gratefully acknowledge the valuable contributions of my wife, P.Y.
Cheng, for reviewing the technical content of the present volume and the
previous work on which it is based. Lawrence Adams purged the
present manuscript of many typographical and stylistic errors, which
contributed substantially to the work.
The author remains grateful to those who helped in preparation of the
first edition, The Dictionary of Computer Graphics Technology and
Applications, from which the present work evolved. Sun Microsystems,
Inc., provided support in the preparation of much of the early
manuscript for that book. I am also grateful to Bob Ellis, David
Rosenthal, and Mike Shantz, my former colleagues at Sun, who made
suggestions concerning the manuscript. Special thanks to Sun colleagues
Susan Carrie, Jack McKeown, Jayna Pike, Stuart Wells, and Johnson Yan,
each of whom thoroughly reviewed the manuscript and made many
valuable comments. I am indebted to Mark Hall and John Barry at Sun
for their encouragement and promotion of the earlier work.
Then and now, thanks go to William Gladstone and Matt Wagner at
Waterside Productions, and to the editors and reviewers at
Springer-Verlag, who contributed significantly to getting this dictionary
into your hands.
xi