O-buffer: A Framework for Sample Graphics

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This proposal introduces an innovative modeling and rendering primitive, called the O-buffer, for sample-based graphics, such as images, volumes, and points. The two-dimensional or three-dimensional O-buffer is in essence a conventional image or a volume, respectively, except that samples are not restricted to a regular grid. A sample position in the O-buffer is recorded as an offset to the nearest grid point of a regular base grid (hence the name O-buffer). The offset is typically quantized for compact representation and efficient rendering. This project investigates and develops representations, algorithms, applications, and a software system for O-buffers. The intellectual merits of the O-buffer are that it is more precise than a conventional image or volume, provides a more compact representation relative to a finer grid, accelerates rendering and supports low-bandwidth communications, improves image quality, is a flexible representation (e.g., non-regular, non-uniform, multi-resolution), and is a unified framework that can represent, render, and mix unstructured primitives. O-buffers can be harnessed in numerous applications, such as improving simulation systems, scientific visualization, Internet graphics, design and manufacturing, and health care, as well as enhancing and upgrading many other computer systems that use sampled-based data, such as images.