Method and apparatus for modeling and real-time rendering of surface detail

1. A system, comprising:

a modeling agent, to develop a surface detail model utilizing a modeling technique appropriate for a given set of viewing parameters;

a rendering engine, responsive to the modeling agent, capable of rendering surface detail in real time with smooth transitions from close-up views to distant views in accordance with the developed surface detail model over an object surface; and

a surface detail engine including a geometry preprocessor module, to generate a mesh grid representation of surfaces of the object, to simulate surface detail in each of the grid elements, and to generate the simulated surface detail into a volume texture on a per-grid element basis, wherein each element of surface detail extends from a seed that is located within one grid element.

2. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the surface detail comprises one of hair or fur.

3. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the geometry preprocessor parameterizes a texture in each of the grid elements.

4. The system as recited in claim 3 , wherein the geometry preprocessor generates a shell texture model for each grid element of the mesh based, at least in part, on the parameterization of the grid element(s).

5. The system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the surface detail engine generates a shell texture model for each element of a dynamically generated mesh grid representation of multiple surfaces of the object.

6. The system as recited in claim 5 , the surface detail engine comprising a shell generator module, to utilize the volume texture and generate at least one semi-transparent concentric shell.

7. The system as recited in claim 6 , further comprising:

a memory device including a plurality of executable instructions; and

a controller, coupled to the memory device, to execute at least a subset of the plurality of executable instructions to implement the rendering engine.