Data Structures

In the previous chapter we saw examples of subscripted variables or arrays. Now we are going to discuss the general use in computer graphics of this and other abstract data structures, and in particular the implementation in Pascal of those structures that are necessary for the more complex algorithms given in this book. Those readers who do not wish to delve too deeply into data structures at this stage may skip this chapter and return to it later in order to understand the complex algorithms. We will limit our discussion to those data structures that will be of value in this book; for those who wish to find out more we recommend books by Aho, Hoperoft and Ullman (1983), Horowitz and Sahni (1976) and Knuth (1973).