Transparency in Interactive Technical Illustrations

This paper describes how technical illustrations containing opaque and non-opaque objects can be automatically generated. Traditional methods to show transparency in manual drawings are evaluated to extract a small and effective set of rules for computer-based rendering of technical illustrations, leading to a novel view-dependent transparency model. We propose a hardware-accelerated depth sorting algorithm in image-space which specifically meets the requirements of our transparency model. In this way, real-time rendering of semi-transparent technical illustrations is achieved. Finally, it is described how our approach can be combined with other methods in the field of non-photorealistic rendering in order to enhance the visual perception of technical illustrations. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Color, shading, shadowing and texture

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: CGF
• Authors: Joachim Diepstraten, Daniel Weiskopf, Thomas Ertl
• Keywords: CGF 2002, Semi-transparent Technical Illustrations, Technical Illustrations, Transparency Model