Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!umd5!umbc3!alex
From: alex@umbc3.UMD.EDU (Alex S. Crain)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: integer vs. floating point math
Summary: programming to that slow reggae beat
Keywords: integer, floating point algorithms, gray scales.
Message-ID: <642@umbc3.UMD.EDU>
Date: 15 Dec 87 09:27:30 GMT
Reply-To: alex@umbc3.UMD.EDU (Alex S. Crain)
Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Lines: 26


	Hiya!

	I've started to draw things on my 3b1, and life bodes well except
that there is no floating point hardware available for the machine. Since
I'm partial to both ray tracing & mandelbrot sets, I've gotten used to 
starting the program and then going to bed. It occures to me that what I'm
doing is fairly restrictive in its range, and fixed-point numbers would
work well here with a significant speed increase. At this point I step into
a gray area of my experiance however, So I'm looking for algoriths. 

	If anyone can point me at a source of general purpose graphics 
algorithms that use integer/fixed-point math to calculate line slopes,
angles, circles, etc. I would greatly appreciate it.

	Also, the machine supports basic bit map functions for AND OR & XORing
of bit patterns. What are the rules of thumb for generating gray-scales?
What are the affects of different patterns, and how do you predict them?
What relationship do gray scale patters have to color? Where do I look for
answers to these and other questions?

		ThanX in advance...
						:alex.


alex@umbc3.umd.edu