The Mathematics of Three-Dimensional Graphics

Computer graphics offers an interesting example of revival of some almost forgotten methodologies and branches of mathematics. The rendering of three-dimensional scenes on a plane surface preoccupied painters for many centuries and the study of perspective projections occupied a prominent position in art schools. Around the beginning of the nineteenth century the study of descriptive geometry became a central subject in engineering and dealt with problems such as finding the intersection of cylinders by graphical means, etc. The invention of photography reduced the significance of realistic art, and the advent of abstract art placed studies of projections in the background. Similarly, descriptive geometry lost its prominence in engineering and by 1960 few engineering students in the United States were studying the subject.