Computing Contour Generators of Evolving Implicit Surfaces

The contour generator is an important visibility feature of a smooth object seen under parallel projection. It is the curve on the surface which seperates front-facing from back-facing regions. The apparent contour is the projection of the contour generator onto a plane perpendicular to the view direction. Both curves play an important role in computer graphics.

Our goal is to obtain fast and robust algorithms that compute the contour generator with a guarantee of topological correctness. To this end, we first study the singularities of the contour generator and apparent contour for both generic views and generic time-dependent projections, for example, when the surface is rotated or deformed. The singularities indicate when components of the contour generator merge or split as time evolves.

We present an algorithm to compute an initial contour generator by using a dynamic step size. An interval test guarantees the topological correctness. This initial contour generator can thus be maintained under a time-dependent projection by examining its singularities.