Point Sample Rendering

Abstract

We present an algorithm suitable for real-time, high quality rendering of complexobjects. Objects are represented as a dense set of surface point samples whichcontain colour, depth and normal information. These point samples are obtained bysampling orthographic views on an equilateral triangle lattice. They are rendereddirectly and independently without any knowledge of surface topology. We introducea novel solution to the problem of surface reconstruction using a hierarchy ofZ-buffers to detect tears. Our algorithm is fast and requires only modest resources.