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An investigation of the quality of surface-shading algorithms using computer-simulated test objects is reported. Test results are presented for four algorithms: z-buffer gradient, gray-level gradient, adaptive gray-level gradient, and marching cubes with two extensions. It was found that gray-level gradient shading and marching cubes did not differ greatly, except for thin objects, where adaptive gray-level gradient shading was better. Transparent visualization using transparent gray-level gradient shading is examined. It is shown that although there is no way to assure the fidelity of transparent shading, it is useful when no other surface at all can be determined. Use of a combination of shading methods appears to yield the best visualization of the respective objects.>
Tiede et al. (Thu,) studied this question.