Surface modeling and rendering with line segments

Abstract

Bridging the modelling and rendering gap between the existing triangle and point primitives, we explore the use of line segments as a new primitive to represent and render 3D models. For the task of modelling, we propose two methods to extract hybrid point and line segment models from scanned point clouds, one is (I?, i??) error bounded and one is based on L2,1 variational shape approximation. In addition, we also present a method for obtaining pure line segment models from triangle meshes. For the task of rendering, we extend the anti-aliasing theory in texture mapping to anti-aliased line segment rendering, and present an approximation algorithm to render high quality anti-aliased opaque, transparent and textured line segments in 3D models. The anti-aliasing rendering technique is empirically validated by building a software pipeline to render point, line segment as well as hybrid point and line segment models that are acquired using our proposed modelling methods. Experiments show that models comprising of line segments are more effective for modelling and more efficient for high quality rendering as compared to their corresponding pure point models.