This edition comes 28 years after one of the milestone papers in the field of computer graphics, "A Characterization of Ten Hidden-Sureface Algorisms" by Sutherland, Sproull, and Schumacker, published in 1973. Their 55-page paper is an incredibly thorough comparison of 10 differect algorisms. What is interesting is that the algorithm described as "ridiculously expensive," the brute-force techniche not even dignified with a researcher's name and mentioned only in the appendices, is what is now called the Z-buffer. This eleventh hidden surface technique won out because it was easy to implement in hardware and because memory densities went up and cost went down. The research done by Sutherland et al. was perfectly valid for its time. As conditions change, so do the algorithms, It will be excuting to see what happens in the decades to come. How will it feel when we look back on this current era of rendering technology? No one knows, and each person can have a significant effect on the way the future turns out. There is no one future , no course that must occur. You create it.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
-Alan Kay
I program my home computer, beam myself into the future.
-Kraftwerk