Speaker: Rumpler Wolfgang
In recent years, curved computer monitors have become a viable option for consumers. However, traditional real-time graphics pipelines expect a flat display surface, and most real-time applications, such as games and simulations, do not consider the actual geometry of the monitor during rendering. As a result, the synthesized images appear distorted and unnatural when viewed on a curved display.
Distortion correction methods for correcting the lens distortion in cameras and head-mounted displays can also be utilized in real-time rendering software for curved monitors. However, the final distortion observed on the curved display depends on the user's viewpoint. With head-tracking, accurate distortion correction can be performed, and perspective-correct projections can be produced.
In this thesis, we analyze various methods for generating correct renderings based on the user's viewpoint and the geometry of the monitor. Our experiments confirm that image-based methods provide the best overall performance with acceptable image quality. However, real-time ray tracing and geometry-based implementations are practicable alternatives when using current hardware, and these methods do not suffer from image resampling artifacts. Additionally, we present and evaluate a custom subdivision scheme as an alternative to hardware tessellation for geometry-based solutions that can be implemented in a single render pass using the recently introduced graphics mesh pipeline. In our subdivision scheme, the geometry is split along a screen-aligned grid that reflects the geometry of the display more accurately than the fixed tessellation patterns of hardware tessellation. While the performance of our software-based subdivision scheme has to be improved further, it produces fewer triangles for coarse geometry and, at the same time, achieves similar image quality to hardware tessellation.
