Realistic and efficient rendering of free-form knitwear

We present a method for rendering knitwear on free-form surfaces. This method has three main advantages. First, it renders yam microstructure realistically and efficiently. Second, the rendering efficiency of yam microstructure does not come at the price of ignoring the interactions between the neighboring yam loops. Such interactions are modeled in our system to further enhance realism. Finally, our approach gives the user intuitive control on a few key aspects of knitwear appearance: the fluffiness Of the yarn and the irregularity in the positioning of the yam loops. The result is a system that efficiently produces highly realistic rendering of free-form knitwear with user control on key aspects of visual appearance. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.