Real-time Computer Graphics

Real-time computer graphics is the subfield of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term is most often used in reference to interactive 3D computer graphics, typically using a GPU, with video games the most noticeable users. The term can also refer to anything from rendering an application's GUI to real-time image processing and image analysis.

Although computers have been known from the beginning to be capable of generating 2D images involving simple lines, images and polygons in real-time (e.g. Bresenham's line drawing algorithm), the creation of 3D computer graphics and the speed necessary for generating fast, good quality 3D images onto a display screen has always been a daunting task for traditional Von Neumann architecture-based systems. The rest of this article concentrates on this widely-accepted aspect of real-time graphics rather than expanding on the principles of real-time 2D computer graphics.