Phong Shading

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What Does Phong Shading Mean?

Phong shading is a specific type of shading technique in 3-D computer graphics that is useful for smoothing out multi-surface shapes and creating more sophisticated computer-modeled images. Experts refer to the technique as “interpolation,” where Phong shading visualizes a smoother surface for a 3-D model.

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Techopedia Explains Phong Shading

Phong shading is named after Bui Tuong Phong who pioneered it at the University of Utah in 1975. It has become a way to more elegantly model shapes composed of polygon surfaces. Some experts explain the technique of Phong shading as “computing the lighting per fragment, not per vertex,” which results in smoothly contoured surfaces and precision lighting of these surfaces. Phong shading can be compared to Goraud shading, another visual interpolation technique.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.