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Efficient real-time dynamic diffuse global illumination using signed distance fields

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Abstract

We present SDFDDGI, a novel approach to compute dynamic diffuse global illumination in real time using signed distance fields (SDF). For an input scene, we first construct its compact representation using SDF. Different from traditional SDF which are stored by discrete voxels, our approach approximates the scene by a set of simple primitive shapes, which facilitates real-time computation and dynamic changes. Then, we reconstruct the irradiance function in the space domain by discrete samples (referred to as probes), which are positioned heuristically for real-time performance. The probe irradiance can be updated and interpolated effectively supported by our compact SDF representation. Subsequently, a screen-space refinement method is developed to enhance rendering details and visual quality. We validate our approach by comparing the performance and quality of our method to other state-of-the-art real-time global illumination methods. Our approach is able to calculate real-time diffuse global illumination for both dynamic geometry and dynamic lighting efficiently without any precomputation, while also supporting multi-bounced light. It is also hardware free and can manage both large open scenes and indoor high-detailed scenes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Xiaogang Jin was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFB1002600), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 62036010, 61732015), the Ningbo Major Special Projects of the “Science and Technology Innovation 2025” (Grant No. 2020Z007) and the Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province (Grant No. 2020C03096).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Lab of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Jinkai Hu, Guillermo Elias Alonso, Xiangjun Tang & Xiaogang Jin

  2. MoreFun Studios, Tencent, Shenzhen, China

    Milo K. Yip

  3. Independent Researcher, Shanghai, China

    Shihao Gu

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  1. Jinkai Hu
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  2. Milo K. Yip
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  3. Guillermo Elias Alonso
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  4. Shihao Gu
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  5. Xiangjun Tang
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Correspondence to Xiaogang Jin.

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Hu, J., Yip, M.K., Alonso, G.E. et al. Efficient real-time dynamic diffuse global illumination using signed distance fields. Vis Comput 37, 2539–2551 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-021-02197-0

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