Authors:
Anthony Giroud
and
Venceslas Biri
Affiliation:
University Paris Est, France
Keyword(s):
Real-time rendering, Light scattering, Participating media, Propagation volume, Occlusion, Radial basis function.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics
;
Geometry and Modeling
;
Lighting and Appearance
;
Real-Time Rendering
;
Reflection and Illumination Models
;
Rendering
;
Rendering Algorithms
;
Rendering Hardware
;
Shadows, Translucency and Visibility
;
Volume Rendering
Abstract:
We present a new approach to illuminate and render single scattering effects in heterogeneous participating media in real time. The medium’s density is modeled as a sum of radial basis functions, and is then sampled into a first volumetric grid. We then integrate the extinction function from each light source to each cell in the volume by a fast cell-to-cell propagation process on the GPU, and store the result in a second volume. We finally render both scattering medium and surfaces using a regular step ray-marching from the observer to the nearest surface. As we traverse the medium, we fetch data from both volumes and approximate a solution to
the scattering equation. Our method is real-time, easy to implement and to integrate in a larger pipeline.