66,532 research outputs found
Flux-Limited Diffusion for Multiple Scattering in Participating Media
For the rendering of multiple scattering effects in participating media,
methods based on the diffusion approximation are an extremely efficient
alternative to Monte Carlo path tracing. However, in sufficiently transparent
regions, classical diffusion approximation suffers from non-physical radiative
fluxes which leads to a poor match to correct light transport. In particular,
this prevents the application of classical diffusion approximation to
heterogeneous media, where opaque material is embedded within transparent
regions. To address this limitation, we introduce flux-limited diffusion, a
technique from the astrophysics domain. This method provides a better
approximation to light transport than classical diffusion approximation,
particularly when applied to heterogeneous media, and hence broadens the
applicability of diffusion-based techniques. We provide an algorithm for
flux-limited diffusion, which is validated using the transport theory for a
point light source in an infinite homogeneous medium. We further demonstrate
that our implementation of flux-limited diffusion produces more accurate
renderings of multiple scattering in various heterogeneous datasets than
classical diffusion approximation, by comparing both methods to ground truth
renderings obtained via volumetric path tracing.Comment: Accepted in Computer Graphics Foru
Progressive Transient Photon Beams
In this work we introduce a novel algorithm for transient rendering in
participating media. Our method is consistent, robust, and is able to generate
animations of time-resolved light transport featuring complex caustic light
paths in media. We base our method on the observation that the spatial
continuity provides an increased coverage of the temporal domain, and
generalize photon beams to transient-state. We extend the beam steady-state
radiance estimates to include the temporal domain. Then, we develop a
progressive version of spatio-temporal density estimations, that converges to
the correct solution with finite memory requirements by iteratively averaging
several realizations of independent renders with a progressively reduced kernel
bandwidth. We derive the optimal convergence rates accounting for space and
time kernels, and demonstrate our method against previous consistent transient
rendering methods for participating media
Reconstruction of hidden 3D shapes using diffuse reflections
We analyze multi-bounce propagation of light in an unknown hidden volume and
demonstrate that the reflected light contains sufficient information to recover
the 3D structure of the hidden scene. We formulate the forward and inverse
theory of secondary and tertiary scattering reflection using ideas from energy
front propagation and tomography. We show that using careful choice of
approximations, such as Fresnel approximation, greatly simplifies this problem
and the inversion can be achieved via a backpropagation process. We provide a
theoretical analysis of the invertibility, uniqueness and choices of
space-time-angle dimensions using synthetic examples. We show that a 2D streak
camera can be used to discover and reconstruct hidden geometry. Using a 1D high
speed time of flight camera, we show that our method can be used recover 3D
shapes of objects "around the corner"
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