Fast Reliable Ray-tracing of Procedurally Defined Implicit Surfaces Using Revised Affine Arithmetic

Fast and reliable rendering of implicit surfaces is an important area in the field of implicit modelling. Direct rendering, namely ray-tracing, is shown to be a suitable technique for obtaining good-quality visualisations of implicit surfaces. We present a technique for reliable ray-tracing of arbitrary procedurally defined implicit surfaces by using a modification of Affine Arithmetic called Revised Affine Arithmetic. A wide range of procedurally defined implicit objects can be rendered using this technique including polynomial surfaces, constructive solids, pseudo-random objects, procedurally defined microstructures, and others. We compare our technique with other reliable techniques based on Interval and Affine Arithmetic to show that our technique provides the fastest, while still reliable, ray-surface intersections and ray-tracing. We also suggest possible modifications for the GPU implementation of this technique for real-time rendering of relatively simple implicit models and for near real-time for complex implicit models

Fast reliable interrogation of procedurally defined implicit surfaces using extended revised affine arithmetic.

Techniques based on interval and previous termaffine arithmetic next term and their modifications are shown to provide previous term reliable next term function range evaluation for the purposes of previous termsurface interrogation.next term In this paper we present a technique for the previous termreliable interrogation of implicit surfacesnext term using a modification of previous termaffine arithmeticnext term called previous term revised affine arithmetic.next term We extend the range of functions presented in previous termrevised affine arithmeticnext term by introducing previous termaffinenext term operations for arbitrary functions such as set-theoretic operations with R-functions, blending and conditional operators. The obtained previous termaffinenext term forms of arbitrary functions provide previous termfasternext term and tighter function range evaluation. Several case studies for operations using previous termaffinenext term forms are presented. The proposed techniques for previous termsurface interrogationnext term are tested using ray-previous termsurfacenext term intersection for ray-tracing and spatial cell enumeration for polygonisation. These applications with our extensions provide previous termfast and reliablenext term rendering of a wide range of arbitrary previous termprocedurally defined implicit surfacesnext term (including polynomial previous termsurfaces,next term constructive solids, pseudo-random objects, previous termprocedurally definednext term microstructures, and others). We compare the function range evaluation technique based on previous termextended revised affine arithmeticnext term with other previous termreliablenext term techniques based on interval and previous termaffine arithmeticnext term to show that our technique provides the previous termfastestnext term and tightest function range evaluation for previous termfast and reliable interrogation of procedurally defined implicit surfaces.next term Research Highlights The main contributions of this paper are as follows. ► The widening of the scope of previous termreliablenext term ray-tracing and spatial enumeration algorithms for previous termsurfacesnext term ranging from algebraic previous termsurfaces (definednext term by polynomials) to general previous termimplicit surfaces (definednext term by function evaluation procedures involving both previous termaffinenext term and non-previous termaffinenext term operations based on previous termrevised affine arithmetic)next term. ► The introduction of a technique for representing procedural models using special previous termaffinenext term forms (illustrated by case studies of previous termaffinenext term forms for set-theoretic operations in the form of R-functions, blending operations and conditional operations). ► The detailed derivation of special previous termaffinenext term forms for arbitrary operators

Ray casting implicit fractal surfaces with reduced affine arithmetic

A method is presented for ray casting implicit surfaces defined by fractal combinations of procedural noise functions. The method is robust and uses affine arithmetic to bound the variation of the implicit function along a ray. The method is also efficient due to a modification in the affine arithmetic representation that introduces a condensation step at the end of every non-affine operation. We show that our method is able to retain the tight estimation capabilities of affine arithmetic for ray casting implicit surfaces made from procedural noise functions while being faster to compute and more efficient to store

Digitally interpreting traditional folk crafts

The cultural heritage preservation requires that objects persist throughout time to continue to communicate an intended meaning. The necessity of computer-based preservation and interpretation of traditional folk crafts is validated by the decreasing number of masters, fading technologies, and crafts losing economic ground. We present a long-term applied research project on the development of a mathematical basis, software tools, and technology for application of desktop or personal fabrication using compact, cheap, and environmentally friendly fabrication devices, including '3D printers', in traditional crafts. We illustrate the properties of this new modeling and fabrication system using several case studies involving the digital capture of traditional objects and craft patterns, which we also reuse in modern designs. The test application areas for the development are traditional crafts from different cultural backgrounds, namely Japanese lacquer ware and Norwegian carvings. Our project includes modeling existing artifacts, Web presentations of the models, automation of the models fabrication, and the experimental manufacturing of new designs and forms

The Iray Light Transport Simulation and Rendering System

While ray tracing has become increasingly common and path tracing is well understood by now, a major challenge lies in crafting an easy-to-use and efficient system implementing these technologies. Following a purely physically-based paradigm while still allowing for artistic workflows, the Iray light transport simulation and rendering system allows for rendering complex scenes by the push of a button and thus makes accurate light transport simulation widely available. In this document we discuss the challenges and implementation choices that follow from our primary design decisions, demonstrating that such a rendering system can be made a practical, scalable, and efficient real-world application that has been adopted by various companies across many fields and is in use by many industry professionals today

Interactive ray shading of FRep objects

In this paper we present a method for interactive rendering general procedurally defined functionally represented (FRep) objects using the acceleration with graphics hardware, namely Graphics Processing Units (GPU). We obtain interactive rates by using GPU acceleration for all computations in rendering algorithm, such as ray-surface intersection, function evaluation and normal computations. We compute primary rays as well as secondary rays for shadows, reflection and refraction for obtaining high quality of the output visualization and further extension to ray-tracing of FRep objects. The algorithm is well-suited for modern GPUs and provides acceptable interactive rates with good quality of the results. A wide range of objects can be rendered including traditional skeletal implicit surfaces, constructive solids, and purely procedural objects such as 3D fractals

The Computer Graphics Scene in the United States

We briefly survey the major thrusts of computer graphics activities, examining trends and topics rather than offering a comprehensive survey of all that is happening. The directions of professional activities, hardware, software, and algorithms are outlined. Within hardware we examine workstations, personal graphics systems, high performance systems, and low level VLSI chips; within software, standards and interactive system design; within algorithms, visible surface rendering and shading, three-dimensional modeling techniques, and animation. Note: This paper was presented at Eurographics\u2784 in Copenhagen, Denmark

Scalable ray tracing with multiple GPGPUs

Rapid development in the field of computer graphics over the last 40 years has brought forth different techniques to render scenes. Rasterization is today’s most widely used technique, which in its most basic form sequentially draws thousands of polygons and applies texture on them. Ray tracing is an alternative method that mimics light transport by using rays to sample a scene in memory and render the color found at each ray’s scene intersection point. Although mainstream hardware directly supports rasterization, ray tracing would be the preferred technique due to its ability to produce highly crisp and realistic graphics, if hardware were not a limitation. Making an immediate hardware transition from rasterization to ray tracing would have a severe impact on the computer graphics industry since it would require redevelopment of existing 3D graphics-employing software, so any transition to ray tracing would be gradual. Previous efforts to perform ray tracing on mainstream rasterizing hardware platforms with a single processor have performed poorly. This thesis explores how a multiple GPGPU system can be used to render scenes via ray tracing. A ray tracing engine and API groundwork was developed using NVIDIA’s CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) GPGPU programming environment and was used to evaluate performance scalability across a multi-GPGPU system. This engine supports triangle, sphere, disc, rectangle, and torus rendering. It also allows independent activation of graphics features including procedural texturing, Phong illumination, reflections, translucency, and shadows. Correctness of rendered images validates the ray traced results, and timing of rendered scenes benchmarks performance. The main test scene contains all object types, has a total of 32 Abstract objects, and applies all graphics features. Ray tracing this scene using two GPGPUs outperformed the single-GPGPU and single-CPU systems, yielding respective speedups of up to 1.8 and 31.25. The results demonstrate how much potential exists in treating a modern dual-GPU architecture as a dual-GPGPU system in order to facilitate a transition from rasterization to ray tracing