Interactive Curved Reflections in Large Point Clouds

Information

• Publication Type: Master Thesis
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • SCANOPY - Scan Data Organisation, Processing and Display
• Date: May 2010
• First Supervisor: Michael Wimmer
• Keywords: mirror space, interactive reflections, curved mirrors, point clouds

Abstract

In the field of real-time rendering, computer graphics observes a continuously growing power of visualizing of scenes of continuously growing complexity. In the past few years, a number of rendering techniques have been developed that let the quality of the rendered images converge towards photorealism. Especially in the field of realistic scene illumination, Global Illumination (GI) techniques represent an important field of research. Previous to this work, for the first time we have applied a GI algorithm also to point clouds, which enables us to achieve realistic illumination of diffuse and glossy objects in real-time. This thesis elevates the power of visualization of this GI-Renderer to the next level. For the first time, it implements a realistic, physically based rendering of mirroring surfaces also for point clouds. Current real-time approaches addressing curved mirroring surfaces in polygon scenes either are extremely imprecise or cannot handle each arbitrary type of surface. Especially concave surfaces represent a significant difficulty for current physically based methods. Up to now, physically correct mirror reflections on complex surfaces can only be produced by offline algorithms. We introduce a novel rendering technique called "Screen-space curved reflections", which enables us to produce physically correct mirror reflections on arbitrarily complex surfaces. Our method bases on the approach, for each point in the scene to find the pixel in the framebuffer that contains its reflecting surface point. This is achieved by the application of a fast 2D root finding in a new error function called "mirror-space error function". Although our method raises high demands on the hardware, we are able to render common scenes at interactive frame rates.

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BibTeX

@mastersthesis{pr10,
  title =      "Interactive Curved Reflections in Large Point Clouds",
  author =     "Reinhold Preiner",
  year =       "2010",
  abstract =   "In the field of real-time rendering, computer graphics
               observes a continuously growing power of visualizing of
               scenes of continuously growing complexity. In the past few
               years, a number of rendering techniques have been developed
               that let the quality of the rendered images converge towards
               photorealism. Especially in the field of realistic scene
               illumination, Global Illumination (GI) techniques represent
               an important field of research. Previous to this work, for
               the first time we have applied a GI algorithm also to point
               clouds, which enables us to achieve realistic illumination
               of diffuse and glossy objects in real-time. This thesis
               elevates the power of visualization of this GI-Renderer to
               the next level. For the first time, it implements a
               realistic, physically based rendering of mirroring surfaces
               also for point clouds. Current real-time approaches
               addressing curved mirroring surfaces in polygon scenes
               either are extremely imprecise or cannot handle each
               arbitrary type of surface. Especially concave surfaces
               represent a significant difficulty for current physically
               based methods. Up to now, physically correct mirror
               reflections on complex surfaces can only be produced by
               offline algorithms. We introduce a novel rendering technique
               called "Screen-space curved reflections", which enables us
               to produce physically correct mirror reflections on
               arbitrarily complex surfaces. Our method bases on the
               approach, for each point in the scene to find the pixel in
               the framebuffer that contains its reflecting surface point.
               This is achieved by the application of a fast 2D root
               finding in a new error function called "mirror-space error
               function". Although our method raises high demands on the
               hardware, we are able to render common scenes at interactive
               frame rates.",
  month =      may,
  address =    "Favoritenstrasse 9-11/E193-02, A-1040 Vienna, Austria",
  school =     "Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms, Vienna
               University of Technology ",
  keywords =   "mirror space, interactive reflections, curved mirrors, point
               clouds",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2010/pr10/",
}