Clipping

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 Clipping

 Clipping means
 Identifying portions of a scene that are inside (or outside) a
specified region
 Examples
 Multiple viewports on a device

 Deciding how much of a games world the player can see

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 Clipping

 Clipping means
 Identifying portions of a scene that are inside (or outside) a
specified region
 Examples
 Multiple viewports on a device

 Deciding how much of a games world the player can see

Player can’t see

this far yet

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  The primary use of clipping in computer graphics is
to remove objects, lines or line segments that are
outside the viewing volume

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 Requirements for clipping

 Is (x, y) inside or outside a given region

 For 2D graphics the region defining what is to be

clipped is called
 The clip window

Clip window

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 Interior and exterior clipping

 interior clipping
 what is to be saved is inside the clip window
 exterior clipping
 what is to be saved is outside clip window

Interior clipping
- keep point P2
P2
(x2, y2)

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 Interior and exterior clipping

Exterior clipping Clip window

- keep point P1
P1
(x1, y1)

 We shall assume interior clipping for now


But you must be aware of exterior clipping too

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 Overview of types of clipping

 All-or-none clipping
 If any part of object outside clip window
whole object is rejected

 Point clipping
 Only keep points inside clip window
 Line clipping
 Only keep segment of line inside clip window
 Polygon clipping
 Only keep sub-polygons inside clip window

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 Before and after POINT clipping

 Before P2

P3 P1
P4

 After

P3 P1

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 Before and after LINE clipping

 Before P2

 After P1

P2’

P1’

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 Before and after POLYGON clipping

 Before

 After

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 Cohen-Sutherland 2D clipping

 4 regions are defined – outside the clip window

 TOP
 BOTTOM
 LEFT
 RIGHT P2

P1

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 The 4-bit codes

 A 4-bit code is assigned to each point

 This code is sometimes called a Cohen-
Sutherland region code
 LEFT bit 1 = binary 0001
 RIGHT bit 2 = binary 0010
 BOTTOM bit 3 = binary 0100
 TOP bit 4 = binary 1000

 So a point coded 0001 is LEFT of the clip window, etc.

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 Cohen-Sutherland region codes

 The point (65, 50) is above and to the right of the

clip window,
 Therefore gets the code: 1010
(65, 50)

(10, 40)
(60, 40)

(10, 10) (60, 10)

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 Cohen-Sutherland region codes

 1000 indicates the TOP region

 0010 indicates the RIGHT region
 the 4 bit Cohen-Sutherland code
is formed by a logical OR of all region codes

 1000 TOP
 OR 0010 RIGHT
 ------------------
 = 1010

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 How the codes are useful
 Why bother encoding points with 4-bit Cohen-Sutherland
region codes?
 Can make some quick decisions
 If code is zero (0000) point is inside window
 If code is non-zero point is outside window

 For the two endpoints of a line

 If codes for both endpoints are zero,
whole line is inside window
 If (logical) AND of codes for endpoints is non-zero,
the endpoints must have a region in common …
So the whole line must be outside clip window

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 Some lines and their endpoint codes
TOP BOTTOM RIGHT LEFT

 Line1 codes are 1001 and 0000

 Line2 codes are 0000 and 0000 << inside
 Line3 codes are 1000 and 0100
 Line4 codes are 1010 and 0110 << outside
Line1

Line4
Line2

Line3
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 Clipping from region codes

 To clip a line based on region codes:

 Choose an endpoint that is OUTSIDE clip window (I.e.
non-zero code)
 Check first bit (TOP) – if set, clip intersection from point
to TOP of clip window
 Check second bit (BOTTOM) and so on

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 Line Clipping Algorithms

 Goal: avoid drawing primitives that are outside the

viewing window.
 The most common case: clipping line segments
against a rectangular window

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 Line Clipping Algorithms

 Three cases:
 Segment is entirely inside the window - Accept
 Segment is entirely outside the window - Reject
 Segment intersects the boundary - Clip

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 Point Classification

 How can we tell if a point is inside a rectangular

window?

ymax

ymin
xmin xmax

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 Line Segment Clipping

 If both endpoints are inside the window, the entire

segment is inside: trivial accept
 If one endpoint is inside, and the other is outside,
line segment must be split.
 What happens when both endpoints are outside?

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 Cohen-Sutherland Algorithm

 Assign a 4-digit binary outcode to each of the 9

regions defined by the window:

1001 1000 1010

ymax

0001 0000 0010

ymin
0101 0100 0110
xmin xmax
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 Cohen-Sutherland Algorithm

1001 1000 1010 bit condition

ymax
1 y > ymax
0001 0000 0010
2 y < ymin
ymin
3 x > xmax
0101 0100 0110
4 x < xmin
xmin xmax

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 Clipping a line

 Choose point P2 (code is 1000)

P2

P1
 Clip from point to TOP of clip window

P1
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 Clipping a line

 Choose point P1 (code is 0110)

 Bit 1 (TOP) not set P1

 Bit 2 (BOTTOM) set – so clip bottom

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 Clipping a line

 Bit 3 (RIGHT) set – so clip right

 Bit 4 (LEFT) not set – so clipping finished

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 Text clipping
 strategies for dealing with text objects
 Consider following example:

 Assume interior
clipping

ABC

Clip window

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 Student Exercise

 Draw three possible results of interior

clipping of the string “ABC”

 Try to name what type

of clipping you have
done in each case
ABC

Clip window
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 Student Exercise

 All-or-none string clipping

 No text is retained after clipping
since part of text is outside clip window
 Whole String “ABC” is clipped as a single object

Before clipping After clipping

ABC

Clip window Clip window

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 Student Exercise

 All-or-none character clipping

 Only “B” and “C” are retained after clipping
since part of “A” is outside clip window
 Each character is clipped as a separate object
Before clipping After clipping

ABC BC

Clip window Clip window

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 Student Exercise

 Character component clipping

 All of “B” and “C” are retained, and those parts
of “A” inside clip window are also retained
 Each component of each character is clipped as a separate
object
Before clipping After clipping

ABC ABC

Clip window Clip window

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 Summary – clipping in general

 Clipping means
 Identifying portions of a scene that are inside (or
outside) a specified region
 Clipping is defined using a clip window
 Interior clipping keep things inside clip window /
Exterior cl. outside

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  Types of clipping
 All-or-none (AON) clipping

if any part of object outside clip area then
reject whole object
 Point / line / polygon / text clipping (AON
string/char, component)

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  3D clipping involves defining a clip volume
 A finite volume of space defined by front and
back clipping planes, the view plane window and
projection method
(more details in lecture on 3D)

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 Summary

 A 4-bit encoding for regions related to clip window

 TOP
 BOTTOM
 LEFT
 RIGHT
 Code can be used to easily
 To determine if a point in inside clip window
 If endpoints of a line mean whole line
is fully inside or fully outside clip window
 Can implement in C++ using char
 8-bit, unsigned, data type

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