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From: andreess@mrlaxa.mrl.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: VGX Texture/surface mapping
Message-ID: <1991Apr28.105606.14254@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Apr 91 10:56:06 GMT
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: University of Illinois, Urbana
Lines: 18

I don't have access to a VGX at the moment, but I'm very curious as
to how the hardware texture/surface/image-mapping works.  I understand
it's done with the extra bitplanes; how does that work?  Can it be fed
arbitrary images?  I saw an SGI demo videotape way back when, with a
VW Bug 'reflecting' its environment (which wasn't actually being rendered);
the SGI rep called this (I think) environment mapping.  How does that
work?

As if that weren't enough:  What additions have been made to the pipeline
and GL to handle all this?  What's the performance penalty?  And finally,
given that this (as well as, I understand, atmospheric effects) is now
supported in hardware, what's left to be implemented within the GL paradigm?

Marc

-- 
Marc Andreessen___________University of Illinois Materials Research Laboratory
Internet: andreessen@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu____________Bitnet: andreessen@uiucmrl