Stable stylized wireframe rendering

Stylized wireframe rendering of 3D model is widely used in animation software in order to depict the configuration of deformable model in comprehensible ways. However, since some inherent flaws in traditional depth test based rendering technology, shape of lines cannot been preserved as continuous movement or deformation of models. There often exists severe aliasing like flickering artifact when objects rendered in line form animate, especially rendered with thick or dashed line. To cover this artifact, unlike traditional approach, we propose a novel fast line drawing method with high visual fidelity for wireframe depiction which only depends on intrinsic topology of primitives without any preprocessing step or extra adjacent information pre-stored. In contrast to previous widely used solutions, our method is advantageous in highly accurate visibility, clear and stable line appearance without flickering even for thick and dashed lines with uniform width, and steady configuration as model moves or animates, so that it is strongly suitable for animation system. In addition, our approach can be easily implemented and controlled without any additional preestimate parameters supplied by users. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.