Simulation of an object system formed by polygon faces having a series

Abstract

The terrain data within an aircraft flight simulation system includes two and three dimensional object items formed by polygon faces having shapes orientations and dimensions selected from a series of fundamental shapes orientations and dimensions. The image data is coordinated in a buffer memory according to a particular format, and forwarded to an image processor. Instruction words appear throughout the format for identifying the type of data in the data words following each instruction word, and for controlling the flow of data through the image processor. The image data formatted and processed includes: Initial position data (Vo), defining the position of initial points or landmark points (i.e., the first vertex of each polygon face) within the terrain coordinate system. Shape data (delta data) defining the relative position of other points, (i.e., the remaining vertices of the fundamental shape incorporated in each polygon face) with respect to the landmark points of each Vo. Scale data for defining the dimensions of each face to be formed from the fundamental object shapes. The image processor translates initial position data into the aircraft coordinate system; then rotates, clips, and projects each three-dimensional position vector to form two-dimensional display vectors. Raster scanlines are generated from the display vectors Vd of each face for display on a CRT.