This IEEE TVCG paper by Kalaiah and Varshney describes a technique for computing a local normal vector field distribution on the GPU. This distribution is determined using a Taylor series expansion derived from the local surface curvatures. Kalaiah and Varshney apply this technique to per-pixel illumination computation for point-based rendering. This method of approximating local vector distributions may also be used in physically-based modeling, collision response, and ray tracing for a variety of application domains including architectural, mechanical, and molecular CAD. Results show that for similar rendering quality, this approach needs fewer primitives as compared to simple splatting-based approaches, resulting in a significant rendering speedup. (Modeling and Rendering Points with Local Geometry. Aravind Kalaiah and Amitabh Varshney. IEEE TVCG. Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2003, pp 30-42)