A method and apparatus for displaying radar data on a display monitor, wherein the monitor is divided into octants, and wherein the radar data defines a pie-shaped slice to be displayed within an octant on the monitor. The radar data has a center point which is defined as a point on an x-y plane, a radius r which is a defined as a number of displacement units in length extending radially from the center point, a starting angle .theta., a delta angle .differential..theta., radial displacement data which defines the color of groups of displacement units along the radius r for the slice, and a quantity Q which is the number of groups of radial displacement data within said radar data. The radar data is received by a data processing system and stored in memory. The video display monitor is updated by a screen refresh memory controlled by a graphics accelerator. The graphics accelerator receive the radar data for the slice to be displayed from the data processing system; determines the octant in which the slice is to be displayed; expands the radial displacement data into a color table which correlates the radial displacement data to pixel colors so that each displacement unit along the radius r has a color assigned to it; generates vertical or horizontal fill vectors for filling in the slice as determined by the octant in which the slice is to be displayed, said vectors having pixel colors as determined by the color table; and inhibits the loading step while the expanding or generating steps are being performed.