Fat borders: gap filling for efficient view-dependent LOD NURBS rendering

Abstract

Real-time high-quality rendering of complex NURBS models remains a big challenge. Simply splitting the models into several parts which can be simplified and rendered independently introduces disturbing gaps along the common borders. Recent approaches for view-dependent rendering of huge models either neglect the artifacts introduced by the gaps or try to maintain the connectivity of the models. Unfortunately, in the second case the computational complexity and storage requirements of the algorithms are high. In this work we present a novel solution to the gap problem. Vertex programs are used to generate appropriately shaded fat borders that fill the gaps between neighboring patches.