Rasterization is the process of analyzing the vertices that comprise a primitive to generate the pixels covered by that primitive. For pixels that lie between vertices, the vertex values are interpolated across those pixels, generating a color value and a depth value for each pixel. These values are passed to the pixel processing unit for each pixel.

The rasterizer expects that the vertices that describe the primitive are described by screen space x, and y values, a depth value, diffuse and specular colors, and potentially some texture mapping coordinates.

The process of generating the color value per pixel involves generating a texture map value for the pixel, and then adding the specular color per pixel. The texture mapping process takes the diffuse color as its initial current color and the various texture mapping coordinates.

The rasterizer uses a set of defined rules for determining which pixels are covered by a given primitive. For more information, see Rasterization Rules.

The following topics provide additional information about rasterization

• Rasterization Rules
  
  
• Interpolation
  
  
• Texture Mapping
  
  
• Fog
  
  

See Also