Two Fast Methods for High-Quality Line Visibility
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, February 2010

Forrester Cole, Adam Finkelstein

Abstract

Lines drawn over or in place of shaded 3D models can often provide greater comprehensibility and stylistic freedom than shading alone. A substantial challenge for making stylized line drawings from 3D models is the visibility computation. Current algorithms for computing line visibility in models of moderate complexity are either too slow for interactive rendering, or too brittle for coherent animation. We introduce two methods that exploit graphics hardware to provide fast and robust line visibility. First we present a simple shader that performs a visibility test for high-quality, simple lines drawn with the conventional implementation. Next we offer a full optimized pipeline that supports line visibility and a broad range of stylization options.

Citation (BibTeX)

Forrester Cole and Adam Finkelstein. Two Fast Methods for High-Quality Line Visibility. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. To appear: February 2010.

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