Prepared by: Ashish Tripathi St Andrews Institute of Technology & Management, Gurugram

SYLLABUS

2|Page Ashish Tripathi

3-D Objects Representation
Polygon and quadric surfaces provide precise descriptions for simple Euclidean
objects such as polyhedrons and ellipsoids; spline surfaces end construction
techniques are useful for designing aircraft wings, gears, and other engineering
structures with curved surfaces; procedural methods, such as fractal
constructions and particle systems, allow us to give accurate representations for
clouds, clumps of grass, and other natural objects; physically based modeling
methods using systems of interacting forces can be used to describe the non-rigid
behavior of a piece of cloth; octree encodings are used to represent internal
features of objects, such as those obtained from medical CT images; and iso-
surface displays, volume renderings, and other visualization techniques are
applied to three-dimensional discrete data sets to obtain visual representations
of the data.
Representation schemes for solid objects are often divided into two broad
categories, although not all representations fall neatly into one or the other of
these two categories.
Boundary representations (B-reps) describe a three-dimensional object as
a set of surfaces that separate the object interior from the environment. Typical
examples of boundary representations are polygon facets and spline patches.
Space-partitioning representations are used to describe interior properties,
by partitioning the spatial region containing an object into a set of small, non-
overlapping, contiguous solids (usually cubes). A common space-partitioning
description for a three-dimensional object is an octree representation.

Polygon Surfaces
The most commonly used boundary representation for a three-dimensional
graphics object is a set of surface polygons that enclose the object interior. The
wireframe outline can be displayed quickly to give a general indication of the
surface structure. Realistic renderings are produced by interpolating shading
patterns across the polygon surfaces to eliminate or reduce the presence of
polygon edge boundaries.

3|Page Ashish Tripathi

Polygon Table

In this method, the surface is specified by the set of vertex coordinates and
associated attributes. As shown in the following figure, there are five vertices,
from v1 to v5.
 Each vertex stores x, y, and z coordinate information which is represented in
the table as v1: x1, y1, z1.
 The Edge table is used to store the edge information of polygon. In the
following figure, edge E1 lies between vertex v1 and v2 which is represented in
the table as E1: v1, v2.

4|Page Ashish Tripathi

 Polygon surface table stores the number of surfaces present in the polygon.
From the following figure, surface S1 is covered by edges E1, E2 and E3 which
can be represented in the polygon surface table as S1: E1, E2, and E3.

Polygon Meshes
3D surfaces and solids can be approximated by a set of polygonal and line
elements. Such surfaces are called polygonal meshes. In polygon mesh, each edge
is shared by at most two polygons. The set of polygons or faces, together form the
“skin” of the object. This method can be used to represent a broad class of
solids/surfaces in graphics. A polygonal mesh can be rendered using hidden
surface removal algorithms.
5|Page Ashish Tripathi
The polygon mesh can be represented by three ways:
 Explicit representation
 Pointers to a vertex list
 Pointers to an edge list

Quadric Surfaces
A frequently used class of objects are the quadric surfaces, which are described
with second-degree equations (quadratics). They include spheres, ellipsoids, tori,
paraboloids, and hyperboloids.

6|Page Ashish Tripathi

Sphere
In Cartesian coordinates, a spherical surface with radius r centered on the
coordinate origin is defined as the set of points (x, y, z) that satisfy the equation
x2 + y2 + z2 = r2
Ellipsoid
An ellipsoidal surface can be described as an extension of a spherical surface,
where the radii in three mutually perpendicular directions can have different
values. The Cartesian representation for points over the surface of an ellipsoid
centered on the origin is

7|Page Ashish Tripathi

Properties of Bezier Curve:
Bezier curves have the following properties:
 They generally follow the shape of the control polygon, which consists of the
segments joining the control points.
 They always pass through the first and last control points.
 They are contained in the convex hull of their defining control points.
 The degree of the polynomial defining the curve segment is one less that the
number of defining polygon point. Therefore, for 4 control points, the degree of
the polynomial is 3, i.e. cubic polynomial.
8|Page Ashish Tripathi
 A Bezier curve generally follows the shape of the defining polygon.
 The direction of the tangent vector at the end points is same as that of the
vector determined by first and last segments.
 The convex hull property for a Bezier curve ensures that the polynomial
smoothly follows the control points.
 No straight line intersects a Bezier curve more times than it intersects its
control polygon.
 They are invariant under an affine transformation.
 Bezier curves exhibit global control means moving a control point alters the
shape of the whole curve.
 A given Bezier curve can be subdivided at a point t=t0 into two Bezier segments
which join together at the point corresponding to the parameter value t=t0.

9|Page Ashish Tripathi

10 | P a g e Ashish Tripathi
Basic Illumination Models
An illumination model, also called a lighting model and sometimes referred to as
a shading model, is used to calculate the intensity of light that we should see at a
given point on the surface of an object. A surface-rendering algorithm uses the
intensity calculations from an illumination model to determine the light intensity
for all projected pixel positions for the various surfaces in a scene.
Surface rendering can be performed by applying the illumination model to every
visible surface point, or the rendering can be accomplished by interpolating
intensities across the surfaces from a small set of illumination-model
calculations. Scan-line, image-space algorithms typically use interpolation
schemes, while ray-tracing algorithms invoke the illumination model at each
pixel position. Sometimes, surface-rendering procedures are termed surface-
shading methods.
Photorealism in computer graphics involves two elements: accurate graphical
representations of objects and good physical descriptions of the lighting effects in
a scene. Lighting effects include light reflections, transparency, surface texture,
and shadows.
Light Source:
When we view an opaque non-luminous object,
we see reflected light from the surfaces of the
object. The total reflected light is the sum of
the contributions from light sources and other
reflecting surfaces in the scene. Thus, a surface
that is not directly exposed to a light source
may still be visible if nearby objects are
illuminated. Sometimes, light sources are
referred to as light-emitting sources; and
reflecting surfaces, such as the walls of a room,
are termed light-reflecting sources.
Ambient Light:
The combination of light reflections from various surfaces to produce a uniform
illumination is called the ambient light, or background light. Ambient light has
no spatial or directional characteristics. The amount of ambient light incident on
each object is a constant for all surfaces and over all directions.

11 | P a g e Ashish Tripathi
Specular Reflection:
A highlight, or bright spot, at certain viewing directions in polished metal
surfaces is due to a phenomenon, called specular reflection, and is the result of
total, or near total, reflection of the incident light in a concentrated region
around the specular reflection angle.
Shiny surfaces have a narrow specular-reflection range, and dull surfaces have a
wider reflection range. An empirical model for calculating the specular-reflection
range, developed by Phong Bui Tuong and called the Phong specular-reflection
model, or simply the Phong model, sets the intensity of specular reflection
proportional to cosns ф. Angle ф can be assigned values in the range 0 to 90, so
that cos ф varies from 0 to 1. The value assigned to specular-reflection parameter
ns, is determined by the type of surface that we want to display. A very shiny
surface is modeled with a large value for ns, (say, 100 or more), and smaller
values (down to 1) are used for duller surfaces. For a perfect reflector, ns, is
infinite. For a rough surface, such as chalk or cinderblock, n, would be assigned a
value near 1. We can approximately model monochromatic specular intensity
variations Ispec using a specular-reflection coefficient, W (θ), for each surface.

We can reasonably model the reflected light effects by replacing W(θ) with a
constant specular-reflection coefficient ks. We then simply set ks equal to some
value in the range 0 to 1 for each surface. Since V (viewer) and R are unit vectors
in the viewing and specular-reflection directions, we can calculate the value of
cos ф with the dot product V.R. Assuming the specular-reflection coefficient is a
constant, we can determine the intensity of the specular reflection at a surface
point with the calculation

12 | P a g e Ashish Tripathi
-

13 | P a g e Ashish Tripathi
Polygon Rendering Methods:
Constant-Intensity Shading
A fast and simple method for rendering an object with polygon surfaces is
constant-intensity shading, also called flat shading. In this method, a single
intensity is calculated for each polygon. All points over the surface of the polygon
are then displayed with the same intensity value.
Constant shading can be useful for quickly displaying the general appearance of a
curved surface. In general, flat shading of polygon facets provides an accurate
rendering for an object if all of the following assumptions are valid:
 The object is a polyhedron and is not an approximation of an object with a
curved surface.
 All light sources illuminating the object are sufficiently far from the surface
so that N.L and the attenuation function are constant over the surface.
 The viewing position is sufficiently far from the surface so that V.R is
constant over the surface.
Even if all of these conditions are not true, we can still reasonably approximate
surface-lighting effects using small polygon facets with flat shading and calculate
the intensity for each facet, say, at the center of the polygon.

Phong Shading
A more accurate method for rendering a polygon surface is to interpolate normal
vectors, and then apply the illumination model to each surface point. This
method, developed by Phong Bui Tuong, is called Phong shading, or normal
vector interpolation shading. It displays more realistic highlights on a surface
and greatly reduces the Mach-band effect. A polygon surface is rendered using
Phong shading by carrying out the following steps:
1. Determine the average unit normal vector at each polygon vertex.
2. Linearly interpolate the vertex normals over the surface of the polygon.
3. Apply an illumination model along each scan line to calculate projected
pixel intensities for the surface points.

The normal vector N for the scan-line intersection point along the edge between
vertices 1 and 2 can be obtained by vertically interpolating between edge
endpoint normals:

14 | P a g e Ashish Tripathi
 END OF UNIT III

15 | P a g e Ashish Tripathi