The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent application programming interface that treats an HTML, XHTML, or XML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a document with a logical tree. Each branch of the tree ends in a node, and each node contains objects. DOM methods allow programmatic access to the tree; with them one can change the structure, style or content of a document. Nodes can have event handlers attached to them. Once an event is triggered, the event handlers get executed.
Open Graphics Library (OpenGL) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering.
In computer graphics, a shader is a type of computer program that was originally used for shading but which now performs a variety of specialized functions in various fields of computer graphics special effects or does video post-processing unrelated to shading, or even functions unrelated to graphics at all.
Pixar RenderMan is proprietary photorealistic 3D rendering software produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar uses RenderMan to render their in-house 3D animated movie productions and it is also available as a commercial product licensed to third parties.
Reyes rendering is a computer software architecture used in 3D computer graphics to render photo-realistic images. It was developed in the mid-1980s by Loren Carpenter and Robert L. Cook at Lucasfilm's Computer Graphics Research Group, which is now Pixar. It was first used in 1982 to render images for the Genesis effect sequence in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Pixar's RenderMan is one implementation of the Reyes algorithm. According to the original paper describing the algorithm, the Reyes image rendering system is "An architecture ... for fast high-quality rendering of complex images." Reyes was proposed as a collection of algorithms and data processing systems. However, the terms "algorithm" and "architecture" have come to be used synonymously and are used interchangeably in this article.
A shading language is a graphics programming language adapted to programming shader effects. Such language forms usually consist of special data types, like "vector", "matrix", "color" and "normal". Due to the variety of target markets for 3D computer graphics, different shading languages have been developed.
Software rendering is the process of generating an image from a model by means of computer software. In the context of computer graphics rendering, software rendering refers to a rendering process that is not dependent upon graphics hardware ASICs, such as a graphics card. The rendering takes place entirely in the CPU. Rendering everything with the (general-purpose) CPU has the main advantage that it is not restricted to the (limited) capabilities of graphics hardware, but the disadvantage that more semiconductors are needed to obtain the same speed.
Anthony A. Apodaca is Director of Graphics Research and Development at Pixar. He is co-creator of the RenderMan Interface Specification (RISpec). His film credits include almost all of the titles produced by Pixar.
Blue Moon Rendering Tools, or BMRT, was one of the most famous RenderMan-compliant photorealistic rendering systems and was a precursor to NVIDIA's Gelato renderer. It was distributed as freeware. BMRT was a popular renderer with students and other people who were trying to learn the RenderMan interface. It also had some features PhotoRealistic RenderMan did not have at the time, for example, ray tracing. Even Pixar used BMRT for ray tracing before PRMan had such features. According to Exluna, it was used for 3D rendering in movies such as A Bug's Life, Stuart Little, The Cell, Hollow Man, and Woman on Top.
Core OpenGL, or CGL, is Apple Inc.'s Macintosh Quartz windowing system interface to the OS X implementation of the OpenGL specification. CGL is analogous to GLX, which is the X11 interface to OpenGL, as well as WGL, which is the Microsoft Windows interface to OpenGL.
Aqsis is a free rendering suite compliant with the RenderMan standard. It is available under the BSD, previously under GPL. Its main author and project manager is Paul Gregory.
jrMan renderer is an open-source version of the Reyes rendering algorithm used by Pixar's PhotoRealistic RenderMan, implemented in Java by Gerardo Horvilleur, Jorge Vargas, Elmer Garduno and Alessandro Falappa.
Patrick M. Hanrahan is a computer graphics researcher, the Canon USA Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering in the Computer Graphics Laboratory at Stanford University.
His research focuses on rendering algorithms, graphics processing units, as well as scientific illustration and visualization.
Typestry is a 3D software program released in the 1990s by Pixar for Apple Macintosh and Windows -based PC computer systems. Unlike general purpose modellers and renderers, Typestry concentrated on rendering and animating text entered by the user in multiple fonts. The fonts were extruded into three dimensions, with various bevel styles and textures applied during rendering. Typestry creates 3D text with Type 1 and TrueType fonts and do many effects:
Modo is a polygon and subdivision surface modeling, sculpting, 3D painting, animation and rendering package developed by Luxology, LLC, which is now merged with and known as Foundry. The program incorporates features such as n-gons and edge weighting, and runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS platforms.
GreenButton was a New Zealand-based software firm. The company specialized in moving independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprises to cloud computing. Founded in 2006, GreenButton was based in Wellington, New Zealand, with additional offices in Palo Alto, California and Seattle.
GreenButton was acquired by Microsoft on 2 May 2014; its technologies were integrated into its Azure service.
Matt Pharr is a computer graphics researcher and author, and one of the primary originators of the physically based rendering process. His research focuses on rendering algorithms, graphics processing units, as well as scientific illustration and visualization.
Showplace is a 3D computer graphics program. It was released in the 1990s by Pixar with versions for Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows. The Mac version was co-developed by Phil Beffreyand Dana Batali. Version 1.0 sold for US$995. It would create a basic primate model, from which the user could change model surfaces and set lighting and camera angles. Version 2.0, which cost $495-695, provided additional modeling tools for users call Clip Objects Library and require Pixar's Renderman for render images. Users can import model from other software by use file RIB format.
