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Imperfect shadow maps for efficient computation of indirect illumination

Published: 01 December 2008 Publication History

Abstract

We present a method for interactive computation of indirect illumination in large and fully dynamic scenes based on approximate visibility queries. While the high-frequency nature of direct lighting requires accurate visibility, indirect illumination mostly consists of smooth gradations, which tend to mask errors due to incorrect visibility. We exploit this by approximating visibility for indirect illumination with imperfect shadow maps---low-resolution shadow maps rendered from a crude point-based representation of the scene. These are used in conjunction with a global illumination algorithm based on virtual point lights enabling indirect illumination of dynamic scenes at real-time frame rates. We demonstrate that imperfect shadow maps are a valid approximation to visibility, which makes the simulation of global illumination an order of magnitude faster than using accurate visibility.

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References

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cover image ACM Transactions on Graphics
ACM Transactions on Graphics  Volume 27, Issue 5
December 2008
552 pages
ISSN:0730-0301
EISSN:1557-7368
DOI:10.1145/1409060
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 01 December 2008
Published in TOG Volume 27, Issue 5

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  1. global illumination
  2. real-time rendering
  3. visibility

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  • (2023)Delta Path Tracing for Real-Time Global Illumination in Mixed Reality2023 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)10.1109/VR55154.2023.00020(44-52)Online publication date: Mar-2023
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  • (2022)Real-Time Rendering of Point Clouds With Photorealistic Effects: A SurveyIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2022.314676810(13151-13173)Online publication date: 2022
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