A Survey on Non-photorealistic Rendering Approaches for Point Cloud Visualization.

Point clouds are widely used as a versatile representation of 3D entities and scenes for all scale domains and in a variety of application areas, serving as a fundamental data category to directly convey spatial features. However, due to point sparsity, lack of structure, irregular distribution, and acquisition-related inaccuracies, results of point cloud visualization are often subject to visual complexity and ambiguity. In this regard, non-photorealistic rendering can improve visual communication by reducing the cognitive effort required to understand an image or scene and by directing attention to important features.