CARVING - A NOVEL METHOD OF VISIBILITY PREPROCESSING FOR UN-RESTRICTED 3-DIMENSIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

We propose a novel idea, carving, for visibility preprocessing of unre stricted (nonaxial) models. It is different from visibility preprocess ing 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 inform ation of the carved axial model can then be computed with the cuttings as detail objects.