How could such computationally intensive process as rendering computer graphics ever hope to be done quickly, in the blink of an eye, without delay - in short, in real time? The term rendering, as it applies to computer graphics, refers to the mathematically intensive process of making an image or sequence of frames based on geometry. The duration of this process depends on the complexity of the scene (a forest with many trees and thousands of leaves will take longer to make than a scene consisting of a white box over a gray background) and the speed of the hardware to do calculations. When Pixar's Toy Story was first released, the computer animation community was all abuzz with how it was done, and someone at Pixar mention that over 100 SGI workstations are used for rendering the frame for almost two years. Other people extrapolation of this data and knowing that the same movie can be displayed in a contemporary PC for about 80 years. The authors deftly answer the question, not just state that it could be done, but because this book is a guide to programmers, they list a piece of programming algorithms that help explain how it could be done. Because the software and hardware continued and rapidly growing because of an insatiable need for more realistic graphics and complex, the book avoids too specific. However, if you work in a given industry depends on real-time animation - like, gaming medical, or military fields - or you are building a real-time rendering engine-the next generation, this book will provide insight and concepts that you can use to build some impressive software.