Point sample rendering

Abstract

We present an algorithm suitable for real-time, high quality rendering of complex objects. Objects are represented as a dense set of surface point samples which contain colour, depth and normal information. These point samples are obtained by sampling orthographic views on an equilateral triangle lattice. They are rendered directly and independently without any knowledge of surface topology. We introduce a novel solution to the problem of surface reconstruction using a hierarchy of Z-buffers to detect tears. The algorithm is fast, easily vectorizable, and requires only modest resources.