ABSTRACT
This first chapter is a brief historical summary of the evolution of PC graphics, a short list of graphics-related technologies and fields of application, and an overview of the state-of-the-art. A historical review is necessary in order to understand current PC graphics technologies. What the PC is today as a graphical machine is the result of a complex series of changes, often influenced by concerns of backward compatibility and by commercial issues. A review of graphics hardware technologies is also necessary because the graphics programmer usually works close to the metal. The hardware intimacy requires a clear understanding the how a binary value, stored in a memory cell, is converted into a screen pixel. The chapter also includes a description of some of themost important applications of computer graphics and concludeswith a presentation of the graphics technologies and development platforms for the PC.
