Efficient stipple rendering

In many computer graphics applications, like stylized rendering, technical illustrations, digital printing, or volume rendering it is required that “continuous tone” models be represented by drawing dots that are either black or white at any given surface point. The arrangement of dots must be chosen so that the illusion of a continuous shade is preserved. In this paper, we propose a method to generate such effects on arbitrary surface and volume structures. The black and white patterns are carved out of a solid texture, in which the spatial arrangement of dots is encoded for arbitrary tones. These patterns are applied to the respective structures using hardware accelerated 3D textures. As a matter of fact, neither does our approach rely on any surface parameterization nor do point primitives have to be used to render the patterns. In addition, by introducing a non-linear gamma-function, charcoal or pen and ink like effects can be achieved. For stylized rendering, we further enhance the artistic impression of silhouettes by generating outlines.