Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

In this paper we present a novel point-based rendering approach based on object-space point interpolation of densely sampled surfaces. We introduce the concept of a transformation-invariant covariance matrix of a set of points which can efficiently be used to determine splat sizes in a multiresolution point hierarchy. We also analyze continuous point interpolation in object-space, and we define a new class of parametrized blending kernels as well as a normalization procedure to achieve smooth blending. Furthermore, we present a hardware accelerated rendering algorithm based on texture mapping and a-blending as well as programmable vertex- and pixel-shaders. Experimental results show the high quality and rendering efficiency that is achieved by our approach.