Topic
Ray tracing (graphics)
About: Ray tracing (graphics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 7010 publications have been published within this topic receiving 112500 citations. The topic is also known as: RT.
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01 Dec 1996
TL;DR: This paper presents a two pass global illumination method based on the concept of photon maps that represents a significant improvement of a previously described approach both with respect to speed, accuracy and versatility.
Abstract: This paper presents a two pass global illumination method based on the concept of photon maps. It represents a significant improvement of a previously described approach both with respect to speed, accuracy and versatility. In the first pass two photon maps are created by emitting packets of energy (photons) from the light sources and storing these as they hit surfaces within the scene. We use one high resolution caustics photon map to render caustics that are visualized directly and one low resolution photon map that is used during the rendering step. The scene is rendered using a distribution ray tracing algorithm optimized by using the information in the photon maps. Shadow photons are used to render shadows more efficiently and the directional information in the photon map is used to generate optimized sampling directions and to limit the recursion in the distribution ray tracer by providing an estimate of the radiance on all surfaces with the exception of specular and highly glossy surfaces.
753 citations
TL;DR: The calculation of material properties for coordinate transformations that describe spaces with spherical or cylindrical holes in them can then implement invisibility cloaks in flat space and a method is described for performing geometric ray tracing in these materials.
Abstract: Complex and interesting electromagnetic behavior can be found in spaces with non-flat topology When considering the properties of an electromagnetic medium under an arbitrary coordinate transformation an alternative interpretation presents itself The transformed material property tensors may be interpreted as a different set of material properties in a flat, Cartesian space We describe the calculation of these material properties for coordinate transformations that describe spaces with spherical or cylindrical holes in them The resulting material properties can then implement invisibility cloaks in flat space We also describe a method for performing geometric ray tracing in these materials which are both inhomogeneous and anisotropic in their electric permittivity and magnetic permeability
741 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that aliasing artifacts are not an inherent part of point sampling, but a consequence of using regularly spaced samples, and frequencies above the Nyquist limit do not alias, but instead appear as noise of the correct average intensity.
Abstract: Ray tracing, ray casting, and other forms of point sampling are important techniques in computer graphics, but their usefulness has been undermined by aliasing artifacts. In this paper it is shown that these artifacts are not an inherent part of point sampling, but a consequence of using regularly spaced samples. If the samples occur at appropriate nonuniformly spaced locations, frequencies above the Nyquist limit do not alias, but instead appear as noise of the correct average intensity. This noise is much less objectionable to our visual system than aliasing. In ray tracing, the rays can be stochastically distributed to perform a Monte Carlo evaluation of integrals in the rendering equation. This is called distributed ray tracing and can be used to simulate motion blur, depth of field, penumbrae, gloss, and translucency.
673 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an octree-based algorithm is proposed to reduce the number of time-consuming object-ray intersection calculations by associating a given voxel with only those objects whose surfaces pass through the volume of the Voxel, which makes possible the ray tracing of complex scenes by medium-scale and small-scale computers.
Abstract: An algorithm is described that speeds up ray-tracing techniques by reducing the number of time-consuming object-ray intersection calculations that have to be made. The algorithm is based on subdividing space into an octree, associating a given voxel with only those objects whose surfaces pass through the volume of the voxel. It includes a technique for obtaining fast access to any node and a mechanism for finding the next node intersected by a ray when it has hit nothing in the current node. This new algorithm makes possible the ray tracing of complex scenes by medium-scale and small-scale computers.
664 citations
01 Jul 2002
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that ray tracing on graphics hardware could prove to be faster than CPU based implementations as well as competitive with traditional hardware accelerated feed-forward triangle rendering.
Abstract: Recently a breakthrough has occurred in graphics hardware: fixed function pipelines have been replaced with programmable vertex and fragment processors. In the near future, the graphics pipeline is likely to evolve into a general programmable stream processor capable of more than simply feed-forward triangle rendering.In this paper, we evaluate these trends in programmability of the graphics pipeline and explain how ray tracing can be mapped to graphics hardware. Using our simulator, we analyze the performance of a ray casting implementation on next generation programmable graphics hardware. In addition, we compare the performance difference between non-branching programmable hardware using a multipass implementation and an architecture that supports branching. We also show how this approach is applicable to other ray tracing algorithms such as Whitted ray tracing, path tracing, and hybrid rendering algorithms. Finally, we demonstrate that ray tracing on graphics hardware could prove to be faster than CPU based implementations as well as competitive with traditional hardware accelerated feed-forward triangle rendering.
643 citations