Highlight-line algorithm for realtime surface-quality assessment (Q1323665)

Visualization of the three-dimensional features of a surface represented on a two-dimensional screen can be a problem. To assist the viewer in a stereographic understanding, the authors propose to highlight on the curve the points at which light from a fixed source arrives on the normal to the curve, i.e., at which the distance to the lightsource is a local minimum. The formulation of the condition leads to an expression rational in the data of the surface. For quick computation, they propose to use only the numerator of this expression. The resulting algorithm is fast enough on a personal work station to allow about 5 updates per second in interactive surface modeling for a surface given by \(10^ 5\) points.