A method is performed at a computing system for automatically generating an occluder, the method includes receiving an input model of the visual three-dimensional structure, the input model having a plurality of faces. The method includes simplifying the input model into an initial occluder including a plurality of candidate patches in a patch-based coarse mesh. The method includes determining a first quality metric of the initial occluder measured by a first number of pixels corresponding to objects behind the visual three-dimensional structure that are blocked by the input model and the initial occluder along a first view direction. The method includes removing one or more candidate patches associated with the first number of pixels from the initial occluder while maintaining the first quality metric above a first threshold to form the occluder for the visual three-dimensional structure.