Shadow mapping algorithms: Applications and limitations

This study provides an overview of popular and famous algorithms and techniques in shadow maps generation.Well- known techniques in shadow maps generation is described detail, along with a discussion of the advantages and drawbacks of each. Basic ideas, improvements and future works of the techniques are also comprehensively summarized and analyzed in depth. Often, programmers have difficulty selecting an appropriate shadow generation algorithm that is specific to their purpose. We have classified and systemized these techniques. The main goal of this paper is to provide researchers with background on a variety of shadow mapping techniques so as make it easier for them to choose the method best suited to their aims. It is al-so hoped that our analysis will help researchers find solutions to the shortcomings of each technique. © 2015 NSP Natural Sciences Publishing Co

Efficient algorithms for occlusion culling and shadows

The goal of this research is to develop more efficient techniques for computing the visibility and shadows in real-time rendering of three-dimensional scenes. Visibility algorithms determine what is visible from a camera, whereas shadow algorithms solve the same problem from the viewpoint of a light source. In rendering, a lot of computational resources are often spent on primitives that are not visible in the final image. One visibility algorithm for reducing the overhead is occlusion culling, which quickly discards the objects or primitives that are obstructed from the view by other primitives. A new method is presented for performing occlusion culling using silhouettes of meshes instead of triangles. Additionally, modifications are suggested to occlusion queries in order to reduce their computational overhead. The performance of currently available graphics hardware depends on the ordering of input primitives. A new technique, called delay streams, is proposed as a generic solution to order-dependent problems. The technique significantly reduces the pixel processing requirements by improving the efficiency of occlusion culling inside graphics hardware. Additionally, the memory requirements of order-independent transparency algorithms are reduced. A shadow map is a discretized representation of the scene geometry as seen by a light source. Typically the discretization causes difficult aliasing issues, such as jagged shadow boundaries and incorrect self-shadowing. A novel solution is presented for suppressing all types of aliasing artifacts by providing the correct sampling points for shadow maps, thus fully abandoning the previously used regular structures. Also, a simple technique is introduced for limiting the shadow map lookups to the pixels that get projected inside the shadow map. The fillrate problem of hardware-accelerated shadow volumes is greatly reduced with a new hierarchical rendering technique. The algorithm performs per-pixel shadow computations only at visible shadow boundaries, and uses lower resolution shadows for the parts of the screen that are guaranteed to be either fully lit or fully in shadow. The proposed techniques are expected to improve the rendering performance in most real-time applications that use 3D graphics, especially in computer games. More efficient algorithms for occlusion culling and shadows are important steps towards larger, more realistic virtual environments.reviewe

Appearance Preserving Rendering of Out-of-Core Polygon and NURBS Models

In Computer Aided Design (CAD) trimmed NURBS surfaces are widely used due to their flexibility. For rendering and simulation however, piecewise linear representations of these objects are required. A relatively new field in CAD is the analysis of long-term strain tests. After such a test the object is scanned with a 3d laser scanner for further processing on a PC. In all these areas of CAD the number of primitives as well as their complexity has grown constantly in the recent years. This growth is exceeding the increase of processor speed and memory size by far and posing the need for fast out-of-core algorithms. This thesis describes a processing pipeline from the input data in the form of triangular or trimmed NURBS models until the interactive rendering of these models at high visual quality. After discussing the motivation for this work and introducing basic concepts on complex polygon and NURBS models, the second part of this thesis starts with a review of existing simplification and tessellation algorithms. Additionally, an improved stitching algorithm to generate a consistent model after tessellation of a trimmed NURBS model is presented. Since surfaces need to be modified interactively during the design phase, a novel trimmed NURBS rendering algorithm is presented. This algorithm removes the bottleneck of generating and transmitting a new tessellation to the graphics card after each modification of a surface by evaluating and trimming the surface on the GPU. To achieve high visual quality, the appearance of a surface can be preserved using texture mapping. Therefore, a texture mapping algorithm for trimmed NURBS surfaces is presented. To reduce the memory requirements for the textures, the algorithm is modified to generate compressed normal maps to preserve the shading of the original surface. Since texturing is only possible, when a parametric mapping of the surface - requiring additional memory - is available, a new simplification and tessellation error measure is introduced that preserves the appearance of the original surface by controlling the deviation of normal vectors. The preservation of normals and possibly other surface attributes allows interactive visualization for quality control applications (e.g. isophotes and reflection lines). In the last part out-of-core techniques for processing and rendering of gigabyte-sized polygonal and trimmed NURBS models are presented. Then the modifications necessary to support streaming of simplified geometry from a central server are discussed and finally and LOD selection algorithm to support interactive rendering of hard and soft shadows is described

Real Time Rendering of Atmospheric Scattering and Volumetric Shadows

International audienceReal time rendering of atmospheric light scattering is one of the most difficult lighting effect to achieve in computer graphics. This paper presents a new real time method which renders these effects including volumetric shadows, which provides a great performance improvement over previous methods. Using an analytical expression of the light transport equation we are able to render directly the contribution of the participating medium on any surface. The rendering of shadow planes, sorted with a spatial coherence technique, and in the same philosophy than the shadow volume algorithm will add the volumetric shadows. Realistic images can be produced in real time for usual graphic scenes and at a high level framerate for complex scenes, allowing animation of lights, objects or even participating media. The method proposed in this paper use neither precomputation depending on light positions, nor texture memory

Real-time Cinematic Design Of Visual Aspects In Computer-generated Images

Creation of visually-pleasing images has always been one of the main goals of computer graphics. Two important components are necessary to achieve this goal --- artists who design visual aspects of an image (such as materials or lighting) and sophisticated algorithms that render the image. Traditionally, rendering has been of greater interest to researchers, while the design part has always been deemed as secondary. This has led to many inefficiencies, as artists, in order to create a stunning image, are often forced to resort to the traditional, creativity-baring, pipelines consisting of repeated rendering and parameter tweaking. Our work shifts the attention away from the rendering problem and focuses on the design. We propose to combine non-physical editing with real-time feedback and provide artists with efficient ways of designing complex visual aspects such as global illumination or all-frequency shadows. We conform to existing pipelines by inserting our editing components into existing stages, hereby making editing of visual aspects an inherent part of the design process. Many of the examples showed in this work have been, until now, extremely hard to achieve. The non-physical aspect of our work enables artists to express themselves in more creative ways, not limited by the physical parameters of current renderers. Real-time feedback allows artists to immediately see the effects of applied modifications and compatibility with existing workflows enables easy integration of our algorithms into production pipelines

Visibility-Based Optimizations for Image Synthesis

Katedra počítačové grafiky a interakce

A Sparse Voxel Octree-Based Framework for Computing Solar Radiation Using 3D City Models

abstract: An effective three-dimensional (3D) data representation is required to assess the spatial distribution of the photovoltaic potential over urban building roofs and facades using 3D city models. Voxels have long been used as a spatial data representation, but practical applications of the voxel representation have been limited compared with rasters in traditional two-dimensional (2D) geographic information systems (GIS). We propose to use sparse voxel octree (SVO) as a data representation to extend the GRASS GIS r.sun solar radiation model from 2D to 3D. The GRASS GIS r.sun model is nested in an SVO-based computing framework. The presented 3D solar radiation computing framework was applied to 3D building groups of different geometric complexities to demonstrate its efficiency and scalability. We presented a method to explicitly compute diffuse shading losses in r.sun, and found that diffuse shading losses can reduce up to 10% of the annual global radiation under clear sky conditions. Hence, diffuse shading losses are of significant importance especially in complex urban environments

Occlusion Textures for Plausible Soft Shadows

International audienceThis paper presents a new approach to compute plausible soft shadows for complex dynamic scenes and rectangular light sources. We estimate the occlusion at each point of the scene using prefiltered occlusion textures, which dynamically approximate the scene geometry. The algorithm is fast and its performance independent of the light's size. Being image-based, it is mostly independent of the scene complexity and type. No a priori information is needed, and there is no caster/receiver separation. This makes the method appealing and easy to use