research-article

Multi-scale modeling and rendering of granular materials

Authors:

Carsten Dachsbacher,

Steve Marschner,

Wojciech JaroszAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), Volume 34, Issue 4

Article No.: 49, Pages 1 - 13

https://doi.org/10.1145/2766949

Published: 27 July 2015 Publication History

Abstract

We address the problem of modeling and rendering granular materials---such as large structures made of sand, snow, or sugar---where an aggregate object is composed of many randomly oriented, but discernible grains. These materials pose a particular challenge as the complex scattering properties of individual grains, and their packing arrangement, can have a dramatic effect on the large-scale appearance of the aggregate object. We propose a multi-scale modeling and rendering framework that adapts to the structure of scattered light at different scales. We rely on path tracing the individual grains only at the finest scale, and---by decoupling individual grains from their arrangement---we develop a modular approach for simulating longer-scale light transport. We model light interactions within and across grains as separate processes and leverage this decomposition to derive parameters for classical radiative transport, including standard volumetric path tracing and a diffusion method that can quickly summarize the large scale transport due to many grain interactions. We require only a one-time precomputation per exemplar grain, which we can then reuse for arbitrary aggregate shapes and a continuum of different packing rates and scales of grains. We demonstrate our method on scenes containing mixtures of tens of millions of individual, complex, specular grains that would be otherwise infeasible to render with standard techniques.

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Condor JSpeierer SBode LBozic AGreen SDidyk PJarabo A(2025)Don't Splat your Gaussians: Volumetric Ray-Traced Primitives for Modeling and Rendering Scattering and Emissive MediaACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/371185344:1(1-17)Online publication date: 3-Feb-2025
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Index Terms

Multi-scale modeling and rendering of granular materials
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Computer graphics
    1. Rendering
      1. Ray tracing

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cover image ACM Transactions on Graphics

ACM Transactions on Graphics Volume 34, Issue 4

August 2015

1307 pages

ISSN:0730-0301

EISSN:1557-7368

DOI:10.1145/2809654

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Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 27 July 2015

Published in TOG Volume 34, Issue 4

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Condor JSpeierer SBode LBozic AGreen SDidyk PJarabo A(2025)Don't Splat your Gaussians: Volumetric Ray-Traced Primitives for Modeling and Rendering Scattering and Emissive MediaACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/371185344:1(1-17)Online publication date: 3-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3711853
Zhou YHuang TRamamoorthi RSen PYan L(2024)Appearance-Preserving Scene Aggregation for Level-of-Detail RenderingACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/370834344:1(1-23)Online publication date: 19-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3708343
Lanza DPadrón‐Griffe JPranovich AMuñoz AFrisvad JJarabo A(2024)Practical Appearance Model for Foundation CosmeticsComputer Graphics Forum10.1111/cgf.1514843:4Online publication date: 24-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.15148
Varsa PBaranoski G(2024)Rendering the Bluish Appearance of Snow: When Light Transmission MattersIEEE Computer Graphics and Applications10.1109/MCG.2023.330751744:1(50-61)Online publication date: Jan-2024
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