A Survey of Real-Time Hard Shadow Mapping Methods

Information

• Publication Type: Journal Paper (without talk)
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • Rendering and Modeling
• Date: February 2011
• ISSN: 0167-7055
• Journal: Computer Graphics Forum
• Number: 1
• Volume: 30
• Pages: 169 – 186

Abstract

Due to its versatility, speed and robustness, shadow mapping has always been a popular algorithm for fast hard shadow generation since its introduction in 1978, first for off-line film productions and later increasingly so in real-time graphics. So it is not surprising that recent years have seen an explosion in the number of shadow map related publications. The last survey that encompassed shadow mapping approaches, but was mainly focused on soft shadow generation, dates back to 2003~cite{HLHS03}, while the last survey for general shadow generation dates back to 1990~cite{Woo:1990:SSA}. No survey that describes all the advances made in hard shadow map generation in recent years exists.

On the other hand, shadow mapping is widely used in the game industry, in production, and in many other applications, and it is the basis of many soft shadow algorithms. Due to the abundance of articles on the topic, it has become very hard for practitioners and researchers to select a suitable shadow algorithm, and therefore many applications miss out on the latest high-quality shadow generation approaches. The goal of this survey is to rectify this situation by providing a detailed overview of this field. We provide a detailed analysis of shadow mapping errors and derive a comprehensive classification of the existing methods. We discuss the most influential algorithms, consider their benefits and shortcomings and thereby provide the readers with the means to choose the shadow algorithm best suited to their needs.

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BibTeX

@article{scherzer2011d,
  title =      "A Survey of Real-Time Hard Shadow Mapping Methods",
  author =     "Daniel Scherzer and Michael Wimmer and Werner Purgathofer",
  year =       "2011",
  abstract =   "Due to its versatility, speed and robustness, shadow mapping
               has always been a popular algorithm for fast hard shadow
               generation since its introduction in 1978, first for
               off-line film productions and later increasingly so in
               real-time graphics. So it is not surprising that recent
               years have seen an explosion in the number of shadow map
               related publications. The last survey that encompassed
               shadow mapping approaches, but was mainly focused on soft
               shadow generation, dates back to 2003~cite{HLHS03}, while
               the last survey for general shadow generation dates back to
               1990~cite{Woo:1990:SSA}. No survey that describes all the
               advances made in hard shadow map generation in recent years
               exists.  On the other hand, shadow mapping is widely used in
               the game industry, in production, and in many other
               applications, and it is the basis of many soft shadow
               algorithms. Due to the abundance of articles on the topic,
               it has become very hard for practitioners and researchers to
               select a suitable shadow algorithm, and therefore many
               applications miss out on the latest high-quality shadow
               generation approaches.  The goal of this survey is to
               rectify this situation by providing a detailed overview of
               this field. We provide a detailed analysis of shadow mapping
               errors and derive a comprehensive classification of the
               existing methods. We discuss the most influential
               algorithms, consider their benefits and shortcomings and
               thereby provide the readers with the means to choose the
               shadow algorithm best suited to their needs. ",
  month =      feb,
  issn =       "0167-7055",
  journal =    "Computer Graphics Forum",
  number =     "1",
  volume =     "30",
  pages =      "169--186",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2011/scherzer2011d/",
}