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Next: Algorithms for Illustration Up: Illustration Techniques Previous: Shading in Illustrations

Illustration Summary

  Technical illustration can be imitated in computer graphics by using black edge lines, a single light source, tone and undertone shading with highlights as presented in Gooch et al., and no shadows. For a NURBS-based model, displaying silhouettes, surface boundaries, and discontinuities provides shape information similar to that of traditional technical illustrations. In the next chapter, I will discuss some algorithms for finding these silhouettes, boundaries, and discontinuities using geometric information of NURBS surfaces. I will also mention some of the other possibilities for generating edge lines for polygonal objects, like the work of Markosian et al., as well as some image processing techniques.