Abstract: The architecture and the hardware realization of the 3D Viewing and Rendering Processor is presented. This processor is a component of the Cube architecture, developed primarily for volume visualiza.tion. The processor generates 2D shaded orthographic, parallel, and perspective projections of the volumetric image of n 3 voxels in O(n210gn) time. This performance is attributed to a unique skewed memory organization, a special ray projection bus, an extended viewing architecture, and a new congradient shading technique. A reduced-resolution prototype has been realized in hardware using printed circuit board technology and has been running in true real time. Currently, a VLSI version of the prototype is being tested.