Direct parametric surface rendering

#1

Hi all,

I am new to graphics programming and I read somewhere it says that there is 2 ways to represent a parametric surface.

  1. Direct representation using the parametric function
  2. convert the surface into polygons

I was wondering is the 1st method possible even if the surface points is edited(i.e it’s not the standard primitives like sphere, cone, etc) Is there any resources on the net describing the first method? Also, any off the shelf software package using the first method? Any references is welcome. Thanks in advance.

Thuan Seah

#2

Just to add to my question, when a renderer spec says it support NURBS, does that mean it uses the first method? Or it simply just mean the renderer is about to take in NURBS as an input?

Thuan Seah

#3

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