Abstract: Existing arc clipping algorithms are inefficient for many complex real-life applications like intelligent CAD and graphics recognition/understanding systems,due to their large number of graphical primitives,complicated geometrical relations and real-time interaction requirements.A fast arc clipping algorithm is proposed to greatly improve the efficiency in two steps.First,adaptive relational-tests are performed to exclude or reserve those arcs without arc-line intersections as more as possible in three levels: circular boundary boxes,arc boundary boxes and segmented quadrant arc boundary boxes.Second,a fast table-based arc-line intersections retrieval method is proposed to obtain the final clipping results for the rest arcs.Only several times of shift,comparison,addition/subtraction or multiplication operations are needed to clip any given arc.Experimental results in real-life graphical applications show that the algorithm is very fast and more efficient.