HA4 Task 2 - Displaying 3D Polygon Animations

How are 3D models displayed? Describe and explain what an API and a Graphics pipeline are.

HA4 Task 2 

API
In computer programming, an application programming interface specifies how some software components should interact with each other. In addition to accessing databases or computer hardware, such as hard disk drives or video cards, an API can be used to ease the work of programming graphical user interface components. In practice, many times an API comes in the form of a library that includes specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and variables. 

Direct3D
Direct3d is used to render three-dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3d also allows applications to run full screen instead of embedded in a window, though they can still run in a window if programmed for that feature. Direct3d uses hardware acceleration if it is available on the graphics card, allowing for hardware acceleration of the entire 3d rendering pipeline or even only partial acceleration.

Graphics Pipeline
Graphics pipeline refers to the sequence of steps used to create a 2D raster representation of a 3D scene. Plainly speaking, once you have created a 3D model for instance in a video game or any other 3d computer animation, the graphics pipeline is the process of turning that 3D model into what the computer displays. In the early history of 3D computer graphics fixed purpose hardware was used to speed up the steps of the pipeline through a fixed-function pipeline, but the hardware evolved and it became more general purpose and this allowed greater flexibility in graphics rendering as well as more generalized hardware, allowing the same generalized hardware to perform not only different steps of the pipeline, unlike fixed purpose hardware, but even limited forms of general purpose computing.