This volume contains papers representing a comprehensive record of the contributions to the fifth workshop at EG '90 in Lausanne. The Eurographics hardware workshops have now become an established forum for the exchange of information about the latest developments in this field of growing importance. The first workshop took place during EG '86 in Lisbon. All participants considered this to be a very rewarding event to be repeated at future EG conferences. This view was reinforced at the EG '87 Hardware Workshop in Amsterdam and firmly established the need for such a colloquium in this specialist area within the annual EG conference. The third EG Hardware Workshop took place in Nice in 1988 and the fourth in Hamburg at EG '89. The first part of the book is devoted to rendering machines. The papers in this part address techniques for accelerating the rendering of images and efficient ways of improv ing their quality. The second part on ray tracing describes algorithms and architectures for producing photorealistic images, with emphasis on ways of reducing the time for this computationally intensive task. The third part on visualization systems covers a num ber of topics, including voxel-based systems, radiosity, animation and special rendering techniques. The contributions show that there is flourishing activity in the development of new algorithmic and architectural ideas and, in particular, in absorbing the impact of VLSI technology. The increasing diversity of applications encourage new solutions, and graphics hardware has become a research area of high activity and importance.

EUROGRAPHICS workshops on Graphics hardware have now become an established forum for an exchange of information con cerning the latest developments in this field of growing importance. The first workshop took place during EG'86 in Lisbon. All parti cipants in this event considered it a very rewarding workshop to be repeated at future EG conferences. This view was reinforced at the EG'87 Hardware Workshop in Amsterdam which firmly esta blished the need for and a high interest in such a colloquium of technical discussion in this specialist area within the annual EG conference. The third EG Hardware Workshop took place in Nice in 1988 and this volume is a record of the fourth workshop at EG'89 in Hamburg. The material in this book contains papers representing a com prehensive record of the contributions to the 1989 workshop. The first part considers Algorithms and Architectures of graphics systems. These papers discuss the broader issues of system design, without necessarily raising issues concerning the details of the implementation. The second part on Systems describes hardware solutions and realisations of machines dedicated to graphics processing. Many of these contributions make important references to algorithmic and architectural issues as well, but there is now a greater emphasis on realisation. Indeed many VLSI designs are described.