Rasteriser

[swinefish]

Hey all

I'm gonna be taking graphics next year and I've been kinda thinking ahead. One of the things we have to do is make either a ray tracer or a rasterizer. However I can find almost no info online about how to actually write a rasterizer. There's a fair amount of info on ray tracers, but I want to do something that hasn't been done too often before (almost everyone writes a ray tracer) There's also the fact that I'm interested in real time rendering, which can be far better done by a rasterizer than a ray tracer...
However... I can find almost no info on them. Is there anyone who can give me some info on them, or possibly a link somewhere with some info on them? I've been toddling around Google for a bit but haven't found anything interesting. And the wikipedia explanation is a little vague.
Any advice greatly appreciated, thanks

Thanks in advance
M

[Rashakil Fol]

Generally speaking you use a graphics card for that... But if you want to implement them yourself, much of the good information is in textbooks. In general, search Google for "graphics algorithms" and "graphics algorithms book" -- I haven't looked closely but they seem to lead to promising results.

[swinefish]

Thanks man I'll take a look :)

[Rashakil Fol]

Especially I would recommend the comp.graphics.algorithms faq. There's a book section in there. I have no idea whether the recommendations are good or not, but if you look at the reviews on Amazon you might get some more info.

[swinefish]

Thanks man...

Found some interesting stuff, but contrary to all logic, wikipedia has been by far the best resource. There doesn't seem to be a lot out there on rasterizing, partly because it's not as realistic as ray tracing, and also (i think) because the basic concepts are fairly simple. Once you've defined the vertices and edges of your shape, a simple projection does it perfectly...

Thanks man