"The RenderMan Interface is designed so that the information needed to specify a photorealistic image can be passed to different rendering programs compactly and efficiently. The interface itself is designed to drive different hardware devices, software implementations and rendering algorithms. Many types of rendering systems are accommodated by this interface, including z-buffer-based, scanline-based, ray tracing, terrain rendering, molecule or sphere rendering and the Reyes rendering architecture. In order to achieve this, the interface does not specify how a picture is rendered, but instead specifies what picture is desired. The interface is designed to be used by both batch-oriented and real-time interactive rendering systems. Real-time rendering is accommodated by ensuring that all the information needed to draw a particular geometric primitive is available when the primitive is defined. Both batch and real-time rendering is accommodated by making limited use of inquiry functions and callbacks."