Real-time computer graphics in the context of Reference Rasterizer

Streaming media is multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a stream of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time or near real-time; this contrasts with file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains an entire media file before consuming the content. Streaming is more commonly used for video on demand, streaming television, and music streaming services over the Internet.

While streaming is most commonly associated with multimedia from a remote server over the Internet, it also includes offline multimedia between devices on a local area network. For example, using DLNA and a home server, or in a personal area network between two devices using Bluetooth (which uses radio waves rather than IP). Online streaming was initially popularized by RealNetworks and Microsoft in the 1990s and has since grown to become the globally most popular method for consuming music and videos, with numerous competing subscription services being offered since the 2010s. Audio streaming to wireless speakers, often using Bluetooth, is another use that has become prevalent during that decade. Live streaming is the real-time delivery of content during production, much as live television broadcasts content via television channels.

3D computer graphics, sometimes called 3D computer-generated imagery (3D-CGI), are computer graphics that use a three-dimensional (3D) representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering digital images, usually 2D images but sometimes 3D images. The resulting images may be stored for viewing later (possibly as an animation) or displayed in real time.

3D computer graphics, contrary to what the name suggests, are most often displayed on two-dimensional displays. Unlike 3D film and similar techniques, the result is two-dimensional, without visual depth. More often, 3D graphics are being displayed on 3D displays, like in virtual reality systems.

A virtual world (also called a virtual space or spaces) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many simultaneous users who can create a personal avatar and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities, and communicate with others. These avatars can be textual, graphical representations, or live video avatars with auditory and touch sensations. Virtual worlds are closely related to mirror worlds.

In a virtual world, the user accesses a computer-simulated world which presents perceptual stimuli to the user, who in turn can manipulate elements of the modeled world and thus experience a degree of presence.Such modeled worlds and their rules may draw from reality or fantasy worlds. Example rules are gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions, and communication. Communication between users can range from text, graphical icons, visual gesture, sound, and rarely, forms using touch, voice command, and balance senses.

3D computer graphics, sometimes called 3D computer-generated imagery (3D-CGI), refers to computer graphics that use a three-dimensional (3D) representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering digital images, usually 2D images but sometimes 3D images. The resulting images may be stored for viewing later (possibly as an animation) or displayed in real time.

3D computer graphics, contrary to what the name suggests, are most often displayed on two-dimensional displays. Unlike 3D film and similar techniques, the result is two-dimensional, without visual depth. More often, 3D graphics are being displayed on 3D displays, like in virtual reality systems.

In computer graphics, a shader is a programmable operation which is applied to data as it moves through the rendering pipeline. Shaders can act on data such as vertices and primitives—to generate or morph geometry—and fragments –to calculate the values in a rendered image.

Shaders can execute a wide variety of operations and can run on different types of hardware. In modern real-time computer graphics, shaders are run on graphics processing units (GPUs) –dedicated hardware which provides highly parallel execution of programs. As rendering an image is embarrassingly parallel, fragment and pixel shaders scale well on SIMD hardware. Historically, the drive for faster rendering has produced highly-parallel processors which can in turn be used for other SIMD amenable algorithms. Such shaders executing in a compute pipeline are commonly called compute shaders.

In 3D computer graphics, ray tracing is a technique for modeling light transport for use in a wide variety of rendering algorithms for generating digital images.

On a spectrum of computational cost and visual fidelity, ray tracing-based rendering techniques, such as ray casting, recursive ray tracing, distribution ray tracing, photon mapping and path tracing, are generally slower and higher fidelity than scanline rendering methods. Thus, ray tracing was first deployed in applications where taking a relatively long time to render could be tolerated, such as CGI images, and film and television visual effects (VFX), but was less suited to real-time applications such as video games, where speed is critical in rendering each frame.

Low poly is a polygon mesh in 3D computer graphics that has a relatively small number of polygons. Low poly meshes occur in real-time applications (e.g. games) as contrast with high poly meshes in animated movies and special effects of the same era. The term low poly is used in both a technical and a descriptive sense; the number of polygons in a mesh is an important factor to optimize for performance but can give an undesirable appearance to the resulting graphics.

Derived from 3D objects with a low polygon content is low poly art, a minimalistic and non-photorealistic art style in which images or figures are created from a network of just a few connected points.