Visible-Surface Detection

Jehee Lee Seoul National University

Visible-Surface Detection Methods

Determine what is visible within a scene from a chosen viewing position Two approaches
Object-space methods: Decide which object, as a whole, is visible Image-space methods: The visibility is decided pointby-point

Most visible-surface algorithms use imagespace methods Sometimes, these methods are referred to as hidden-surface elimination

Approaches
Back-Face Removal Depth Buffer A-Buffer Scanline Depth Sorting BSP Tree Area Subdivision Octree Raycasting

Back-Face Removal (Culling)

Used to remove unseen polygons from convex, closed polyhedron

Does not completely solve hidden surface problem since one polyhedron may obscure another

Back-Face Removal (Culling)

Compute the equation of the plane for each polygon
A point (x,y,z) is behind a polygon surface if

Ax By Cz D 0
Determine back-face
In projection coordinates, we need to consider only the z component of the normal vector N

Vview N 0

Depth-Buffer (Z-Buffer)
Z-Buffer has memory corresponding to each pixel location
Usually, 16 to 20 bits/location.

Depth-Buffer (Z-Buffer)
Initialize
Each z-buffer location Max z value
Each frame buffer location background color

For each polygon:

Compute z(x,y), polygon depth at the pixel (x,y) If z(x,y) < z-buffer value at pixel (x,y), then

z buffer(x,y) z(x,y)
pixel(x,y) color of polygon at (x,y)

Depth Calculation
Calculate the z-value on the plane

Ax By D Ax By Cz D 0 z C
Incremental calculation
z( x , y ) : the depth of position ( x, y )

z( x 1, y ) z( x , y 1)

A( x 1) By D A z( x , y ) C C Ax B( y 1) D B z( x , y ) C C

Depth-Buffer (Z-Buffer)
Advantages/Disadvantages
Lots of memory (not anymore) Linear performance Polygons may be processed in any order Modifications needed to implement antialiasing, transparency, translucency effects Commonly implemented in hardware very fast

Depth-Buffer (Z-Buffer)

Backface culling

Z-buffer algorithm

Accumulation Buffer (A-Buffer)

An extension of the depth-buffer for dealing with anti-aliasing, area-averaging, transparency, and translucency The depth-buffer method identifies only one visible surface at each pixel position
Cannot accumulate color values for more than one transparent and translucent surfaces

Even more memory intensive Widely used for high quality rendering

Accumulation Buffer (A-Buffer)

Each position in the A-buffer has two fields
Depth field: Stores a depth value Surface data field RGB intensity components Opacity parameter (percent of transparency) Depth Percent of area coverage Surface identifier

Scan Line Method

Intersect each polygon with a particular scanline and solve hidden surface problem for just that scan line
Requires a depth buffer equal to only one scan line Requires the entire scene data at the time of scan conversion

Maintain an active polygon and active edge list Can implement antialiasing as part of the algorithm

Depth Sorting
Painters algorithm
Draw polygons as an oil painters might do

Sort polygons by depth and draw them from back to front Depth sorting is NOT simple

Depth Sorting
We need a partial ordering (not a total ordering) of polygons
The ordering indicates which polygon obscures which polygon Some polygons may not obscure each other

Simple cases

Depth Sorting
We make the following tests for each polygon that has a depth overlap with S If any one of these tests is true, no reordering is necessary for S and the polygon being tested
Polygon S is completely behind the overlapping surface relative to the viewing position The overlapping polygon is completely in front of S relative to the viewing position The boundary-edge projections of the two polygons onto the view plane do not overlap

Depth Sorting
Example

Depth Sorting
Cyclically overlapping surfaces that alternately obscure one another We can divide the surfaces to eliminate the cyclic overlaps

BSP Trees
Binary space partitioning is an efficient method for determining object visibility Paint surfaces into the frame buffer from back to front Particularly useful when the view reference point changes, but the objects are at fixed positions

BSP Tree Construction

1.

2.
3. 4. 5.

Choose a polygon T and compute the equation of the plane it defines Test all the vertices of all the other polygons to determine if they are in front of, behind, or in the same plane as T. If the plane intersects a polygon, divide the polygon at the plane Polygons are placed into a binary search three with T as the root Call the procedure recursively on the left and right subtree

Traversing BSP Trees

EYE 1 A F2 +Z D

B
E1 F1

C
D E2 F2

F1

C
E2 A

E1 B

+X EYE 2

-X

BSP Trees
BST tree construction requires a number of polygons to be fractured It is possible for the number of triangles to increase exponentially but, in practice, it is found that the increase may be as small as two fold A heuristic to help minimize the number of fractures is to enter the polygons into the tree in order from largest to smallest

Area Subdivision
Image-space method taking advantage of area coherence in a scene Recursively subdivide a square area into equalsized quadrants if the area is too complex to analyze easily

Area Subdivision
Four possible relationships between polygon surfaces and a rectangular section of the viewing plane

Terminating criteria
Case 1: An area has no inside, overlapping, or surrounding surfaces (all surfaces are ourside the area) Case 2: An area has only one inside, overlapping or surrounding surfaces Case 3: An area has one surrounding surface that obscures all other surfaces within the area boundaries

Octrees
Visible-surface identification is accomplished by searching octree nodes in a front-to-back order

Ray Casting
We consider the line of sight from the a pixel position through the scene Useful for volume data Ray casting is a special case of ray tracing that we will study later

Ray Casting Examples