Fast hardware graphic generators of curve families

Special purpose hardware devices devoted to display families of curves are very attractive when high performance graphic tools are to be designed. In this paper an architecture well suited for fast hardware curve generators is proposed, mainly based on the use of vector generators and ROMs. Curve graphs are approximated by polygonal lines, the extremes of which and a selected subset of vertices can be obtained with the required precision. Output rate is shown to be very close to available vector generators rate. As an example, a device adopting this architecture has been designed for the generation of conic and exponential curves. Precision figures have been obtained in the hypothesis that the generator hardware complexity allows a single chip implementation. The architecture is easily extensible to three-dimensional curves.