3D graphics or three-dimensional computer graphics, in contrast to 2D computer graphics) are graphs that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric (often Cartesian) data stored in the computer for the purpose of calculations and represent 2D images. Such images can be stored for viewing later or displayed in real time.
3D computer graphics are based on many of the same algorithms as the 2D computer vector graphics in the wire-frame model and the 2D grid graphics on the final rendered screen. In computer graphics software, the distinction between 2D and 3D is occasionally blurred; 2D applications can use 3D techniques to achieve effects such as lighting, and 3D can use 2D rendering techniques.
3D computer graphics are often referred to as 3D models. Apart from the borrowed graph, the model is contained within the graphic data file. However, there are differences: a 3D model is the mathematical representation of any three-dimensional object. A model is not technically a graph until it is displayed. A model can be viewed visually as a two-dimensional image through a process called 3D rendering or used in non-graphing simulations and calculations. With 3D printing, 3D models are represented similarly in a 3D physical representation of the model, with limitations on the accuracy of the representation may coincide with the virtual model.
History
William Fetter was credited with coining the term computer graphics in 1961 to describe his work at Boeing. One of the first presentations of computer animation was Futureworld (1976), which included an animation of a human face and a hand that had originally appeared in the experimental 1972 A Computer Animated Hand, created by Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke. 3D computer graphics software began to appear for personal computers in the late 1970s. The first known example is 3D Art Graphics, a set of 3D graphic effects, written by Kazumasa Mitazawa and released in June 1978 for the Apple II.