(algorithm)
Definition: An efficient algorithm to render a line with pixels. The long dimension is incremented for each pixel, and the fractional slope is accumulated.
Author: PEB
An explanation.
Jack E. Bresenham, Algorithm for Computer Control of a Digital Plotter, IBM Systems Journal, 4(1):25-30, 1965.
Reprinted in Interactive Computer Graphics, Herbert Freeman ed., IEEE catalog no. EHO 156-0, Library of Congress no. 79-91237, 1980, and Seminal Graphics: Pioneering Efforts That Shaped The Field, Rosalee Wolfe ed., ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM order no. 435985, ISBN 1-58113-052-X, 1998.
Historical Note
In November 2001 Jack E. Bresenham wrote, "I was working in the computation lab at IBM's San Jose development lab. A Calcomp plotter had been attached to an IBM 1401 via the 1407 typewriter console. [The algorithm] was in production use by summer 1962, possibly a month or so earlier. Programs in those days were freely exchanged among corporations so Calcomp (Jim Newland and Calvin Hefte) had copies. When I returned to Stanford in Fall 1962, I put a copy in the Stanford comp center library.
A description of the line drawing routine was accepted for presentation at the 1963 ACM national convention in Denver, Colorado. It was a year in which no proceedings were published, only the agenda of speakers and topics in an issue of Communications of the ACM. A person from the IBM Systems Journal asked me after I made my presentation if they could publish the paper. I happily agreed, and they printed it in 1965."
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul E. Black.
Entry modified Fri Dec 17 12:11:05 2004.
HTML page formatted Wed Oct 26 09:47:17 2005.
Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "Bresenham's algorithm", from
Dictionary of Algorithms and Data
Structures, Paul E. Black, ed.,
NIST.
http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/bresenham.html
