Carving: a novel method of visibility preprocess- ing for un-restricted three-dimensional environments

Abstract

We propose a novel idea, carving, for visibility preprocessing of unrestricted (nonaxial) models. It is different from visibility preprocessing applied directly to nonaxial data. As a sculptor carves a statue, carving splits the nonaxial portion of a model, and results in a model with only axial polygons and a set of cuttings. The visibility information of the carved axial model can then be computed with the cuttings as detail objects.