View-based rendering: Visualizing real objects from scanned range and color data

View-based rendering: Visualizing real objects from scanned range and color data
Kari Pulli, Michael Cohen, Tom Duchamp, Hugues Hoppe, Linda Shapiro, Werner Stuetzle.
Eurographics Workshop on Rendering 1997, 23-34.
Blending of textured depth meshes using soft z-buffering.
Abstract: Modeling arbitrary real objects is difficult and rendering textured models typically does not result in realistic images. We describe a new method for displaying scanned real objects, called view-based rendering. The method takes as input a collection of colored range images covering the object and creates a collection of partial object models. These partial models are rendered separately using traditional graphics hardware and blended together using various weights and soft z-buffering. We demonstrate interactive viewing of real, non-trivial objects that would be difficult to model using traditional methods.
Hindsights: Essentially, this approach performs runtime blending of precomputed textured depth meshes (TDMs) used as impostors. It is yet another interesting point in the broad space of image-based rendering techniques.