Shading

Flat shading or Constant Shading is in contrast to the Gouraud shading or Phong shading is a very simple shading method. With this method, each pixel of a polygon to be derived from the surface normal of the same color or the same light value. This has a stepped, rectangular and unrealistic appearance of objects with curved surfaces especially for sequence ( eg, Mach banding ).

To reduce the facet-like representation, the polygons have to be reduced, which would result in an increased computational complexity. Flat shading is therefore especially useful for objects with flat surfaces ( square, cube, pyramid, prism ... ) application. However, Gouraud or Phong shading should be used for objects with curved surfaces (cylinders, spheres, cones ... ).

After the wireframe flat shading method is the fastest algorithm for the visualization of a 3D scene.

• Image synthesis