Abstract: A reduced viewport feature for a graphics display system allows an operator to observe manipulations on a graphics display of video image planes that are wholly or partially outside a viewing area. A two-dimensional input image plane in the form of a wireframe is transformed to a three-dimensional image plane due to manipulation, such as rotation and/or translation. The resulting three-dimensional image plane is subsequently mapped as a two-dimensional projection onto the graphics display. Transformation matrix coefficients are multiplied by a variable reduction coefficient to cause all points of the image plane to converge toward the center of the graphics display, resulting in the ability to view space which originally was not visible to the operator on an output video monitor.

Abstract: A graphics path display has fixed wireframes representing key positions of an image being manipulated. Inbetween wireframes, dots or dashes are generated according to a defined display rate between sequential key positions. The inbetween wireframes are generated by an algorithm selected by an operator, and are adjusted in realtime as the operator changes variable parameters for the algorithm to present a realtime display of the graphics path defined by the algorithm and parameters.