Point clouds are usually represented either globally, as surfaces, or locally, as sets of points with small neighbourhoods. We propose an intermediate representation, called ribbons, which is obtained by partitioning a point cloud into one-dimensional strips. This representation is well suited to the placement of strokes in non-photorealistic rendering, and can be visualized efficiently using quad strips. Methods for performing hatching, cross-hatching, and silhouette renderings are presented. Ribbons also allow for the application of curve-based operations to the point cloud.
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