Circular Arcs as Primitives for Vector

Textures

Zheng Qin
with Craig S. Kaplan and Michael D. McCool

University of Waterloo
Vector textures: Motivation

Resolution independent texture maps

Use SVG content created with standard tools
Vector texture: challenges

For texturing, need random access


Antialiased boundaries essential


Layered paths and occlusions


Support for embossing, halos, etc.


High performance for 3D real-time rendering
Applications

Legible text on 3D surfaces
 Labels, signs, documents, maps

Symbolic information
 Icons, graphics, line drawings, strokes on maps

Artistic content
 Wallpaper, carpets, tiles, other surface detail

Model complex shapes
 Transparency, embossing, halo
Related work: Summary

Extensions of interpolation
 Avoid interpolating through discontinuities

Distance-based methods for bilevel images
 Exact and sampled distance fields
 Implicit functions to approximate distance
 Applications to text rendering

Full vector graphics support
 General vector texture was not supported by previous work
Extensions of interpolation

Feature-based textures
 Ramanarayanan et al 2004

Silhouette maps for improved texture magnification
 Sen et al 2004

Bixels: Picture samples with sharp embedded boundaries
 Tumblin et al 2004

Pinchmap: textures with customizable discontinuities
 Tarini et al 2005
Methods for bilevel images
 Adaptively sampled distance fields
 Frisken et al 2000
 Efficient magnification of bi-level textures
 Loviscach 2005
 Vector texture maps on the GPU
 Ray et al 2005
 Resolution independent curve rendering using programmable graphics hardware
 Loop and Blinn 2006
 Real-time texture-mapped vector glyphs
 Qin et al 2006
 Improved alpha-tested magnification for vector textures and special effects
 Green 2007
Full vector graphics support

Texel programs for random-access antialiased vector
graphics
 Nehab and Hoppe 2007

Precise Vector Textures for Real-Time 3D Rendering
 Qin et al 2008

ALSO GOAL OF THIS RESEARCH
Our assumptions

Paths are closed


Paths do not self-intersect


All boundaries are clockwise oriented
Our solution

Use grid data structure to limit the computation

 Random access and high performance


Compute accurate distance to closest boundary

 Inside/outside test, antialiasing, special effects


Flatten image to produce planar arrangement

 Occlusion is resolved after flattening

Our contributions

Approximate curves with circular arcs
 C1 (G1) continuity boundary (improvement over our previous work)
 Distance computation is comparable with distance to line segment
 Arc splines closed under offset operations

Developed the first system that fully supports main SVG
features in real-time vector textures
Steps in our solution

Preprocessing:
 Flatten layers into a planar arrangement
 Approximate paths with arc splines
 Build accelerator data structure

Shading computation:
 Compute distance to two closest boundaries
 Blend the two colors smoothly
Preprocessing: flattening
Preprocessing

Approximate paths with arc splines using biarcs
 Yang 2002: Efficient Circular Arc Interpolation Based on Active
Tolerance Control

Superimpose grid on paths

Dilate every grid cell by maximum distance

In every cell, store list of all segments that influence it

Use Voronoi diagram to find out which boundary influences the
points in a cell
Arc representation

Each arc represented with 5
parameters: two endpoints
and height


For line segments, height h
is 0


Tangent continuity
Interval analysis to list features

Discrete Voronoi diagram can miss small details


Use interval extension of distance to arc computation
Interval analysis results
Pack with simulated annealing

Each point has
same amount of
computation


Avoid control flow
on GPU
Distance to arc

Compute the arc origin
 If we store origin, this
computation can be saved
Distance to arc
Antialiasing

Find two closest
distances
Results
Results

Line segment image for
performance testing


Also shows that only need
one primitive: “flat” arcs can
represent line segments


Avoids control flow
Performance

NVIDIA 7800GT

Screen size 512 x 512

Performance 30 ~ 60 fps

Distance to arc is 70%~78% of the speed of distance to
line segment
Analysis of results

Flattening doubles the complexity of the image
 Used half-edge rather than winged-edge structure due to
limitation of our flattening software

Uniform grid causes either a large storage size or reduces
performance; better accelerator desirable

Constant number of distance computations affect
performance; control flow would help
Conclusions

Possible to approximate curves with arc splines
 Gives better continuity than line segments

Distance to arc is easy and fast

Distance can be used for special effects

Used flattening to solve the multiple layer feature

Support main features of SVG format
Future work

Better data structure and usage of control flow in GPUs
 Smaller storage size and high performance

Use another approach to solve multi-layer problem
 Want to avoid doubling the complexity of image

Support more SVG features

Compute distance to higher order curves directly
 Actually did this in later work using iterative approach