AGOCG Rendering Evaluation

This report is also available as an Acrobat file

Introduction

This survey of rendering systems was funded by AGOCG, the UK Advisory Group on Computer Graphics.

Almost too much information has now become available about 3D rendering systems and their associated formats. Someone unfamiliar with 3D rendering systems could find it difficult to make a judgement about which direction to take. One of the difficulties is the different uses to which 3D rendering is put: visualization, entertainment, virtual reality, animation and so on.

This live survey aims:

to take a broad approach, so that the diversity of uses to which renderers are put are represented here
to use a common template where appropriate, to help make information easier to find
to store as little as possible - where the content already exists elsewhere, a link is made to it, except for some brief summarising comments.
to include information on formats and their converters, because the format of the renderer rarely matches the format of the data.

Structure of the Information

This survey contains information about software packages, the main interest being in renderers and format conversion. Information includes the platforms on which they run, the input formats they accept and, where relevant, the output formats also.

The survey also contains information on formats that are relevant to rendering systems - either those formats which are used directly as input to a renderer or can easily be converted to one. Software primarily devoted to format conversion is reachable via the formats which it handles.

Trademarks

Trademarks are not explicitly marked in these pages. However the web page for each product includes a link to a web page of, to the best of our belief, the relevant organisation. If there is any product for which this is not the case, please inform the contact point.

People involved in the survey

The survey has been carried out by the following people in the Department for Computation and Information at RAL: Julian Gallop, Chris Osland, Janet Haswell and Roger May.

If there are suggestions for additions or other improvements to this web on Rendering Systems, please mail the contact point for this survey.

Julian Gallop, 3 December, 1997

Graphics Multimedia Virtual Environments Visualisation Contents