Selective component-based rendering

ABSTRACT

The computational requirements of full global illumination rendering are such that it is still not possible to achieve high-fidelity graphics of very complex scenes in a reasonable time on a single computer. By identifying which computations are more relevant to the desired quality of the solution, selective rendering can significantly reduce rendering times. In this paper we present a novel component-based selective rendering system in which the quality of every image, and indeed every pixel, can be controlled by means of a component regular expression (crex). The crex provides a flexible mechanism for controlling which components are rendered and in which order. It can be used as a strategy for directing the light transport within a scene and also in a progressive rendering framework. Furthermore, the crex can be combined with visual perception techniques to reduce rendering computation times without compromising the perceived visual quality. By means of a psychophysical experiment we demonstrate how the crex can be successfully used in such a perceptual rendering framework. In addition, we show how the crex's flexibility enables it to be incorporated in a predictive framework for time-constrained rendering.

REFERENCES

• 1: Larry Bergman , Henry Fuchs , Eric Grant , Susan Spach, Image rendering by adaptive refinement, Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.29-37, August 1986
• 2: Mark R. Bolin , Gary W. Meyer, A perceptually based adaptive sampling algorithm, Proceedings of the 25th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.299-309, July 1998 [doi>10.1145/280814.280924]
• 3: K. Cater , A. Chalmers , G. Ward, Detail to attention: exploiting visual tasks for selective rendering, Proceedings of the 14th Eurographics workshop on Rendering, June 25-27, 2003, Leuven, Belgium
• 4: Shenchang Eric Chen , Holly E. Rushmeier , Gavin Miller , Douglass Turner, A progressive multi-pass method for global illumination, Proceedings of the 18th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.165-174, July 1991
• 5: James H. Clark, Hierarchical geometric models for visible surface algorithms, Communications of the ACM, v.19 n.10, p.547-554, Oct. 1976 [doi>10.1145/360349.360354]
• 6: Michael F. Cohen , Shenchang Eric Chen , John R. Wallace , Donald P. Greenberg, A progressive refinement approach to fast radiosity image generation, Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.75-84, June 1988
• 7: Scott Daly, The visible differences predictor: an algorithm for the assessment of image fidelity, Digital images and human vision, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993
• 8: Debattista, K., Sundstedt, V., Pereira, F., and Chalmers, A. 2005. Selective parallel rendering for high-fidelity graphics. In Proceedings of Theory and Practice of Computer Graphics 2005, Eurographics Association, 59--66.
• 9: Reynald Dumont , Fabio Pellacini , James A. Ferwerda, Perceptually-driven decision theory for interactive realistic rendering, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.22 n.2, p.152-181, April 2003 [doi>10.1145/636886.636888]
• 10: Thomas A. Funkhouser , Carlo H. Séquin, Adaptive display algorithm for interactive frame rates during visualization of complex virtual environments, Proceedings of the 20th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.247-254, September 1993 [doi>10.1145/166117.166149]
• 11: Enrico Gobbetti , Eric Bouvier, Time-critical multiresolution scene rendering, Proceedings of the conference on Visualization '99: celebrating ten years, p.123-130, October 1999, San Francisco, California, United States
• 12: Haber, J., Myszkowski, K., Yamauchi, H., and Seidel, H.-P. 2001. Perceptually guided corrective splatting. In Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 20, 142--152.
• 13: Paul S. Heckbert, Adaptive radiosity textures for bidirectional ray tracing, Proceedings of the 17th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.145-154, September 1990, Dallas, TX, USA
• 14: Horvitz, E., and Lengyel, J., 1997. Perception, attention, and resources: A decision-theoretic approach to graphics rendering.
• 15: Laurent Itti , Christof Koch , Ernst Niebur, A Model of Saliency-Based Visual Attention for Rapid Scene Analysis, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, v.20 n.11, p.1254-1259, November 1998 [doi>10.1109/34.730558 ]
• 16: James, W. 1890. A saliency-based search mechanism for overt and covert shifts of visual attention. In Principles of Psychology.
• 17: James T. Kajiya, The rendering equation, Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.143-150, August 1986
• 18: Koch, C., and Ullman, S. 1985. Shifts in selective visual attention: towards the underlying neural circuitry. In Human Neurobiology, vol. 4, 219--227.
• 19: Greg Ward Larson , Rob Shakespeare, Rendering with radiance: the art and science of lighting visualization, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1998
• 20: Longhurst, P., Debattista, K., and Chalmers, A. 2005. Snapshot: A rapid technique for driving a selective global illumination renderer. In WSCG 2005 SHORT papers proceedings.
• 21: David Luebke , Benjamin Watson , Jonathan D. Cohen , Martin Reddy , Amitabh Varshney, Level of Detail for 3D Graphics, Elsevier Science Inc., New York, NY, 2002
• 22: Paulo W. C. Maciel , Peter Shirley, Visual navigation of large environments using textured clusters, Proceedings of the 1995 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics, p.95-ff., April 09-12, 1995, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/199404.199420]
• 23: Mason, A. E. W., and Blake, E. H. 1997. Automatic hierarchical level of detail optimization in computer animation. Computer Graphics Forum 16, 3, C191--C199.
• 24: Don P. Mitchell, Generating antialiased images at low sampling densities, Proceedings of the 14th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.65-72, August 1987
• 25: Myszkowski, K. 1998. The Visible Differences Predictor: Applications to global illumination problems. In Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, 223--236.
• 26: O'Sullivan, C., Howlett, S., Mcdonnell, R., Morvan, Y., and O'Conor, K. 2004. Perceptually adaptive graphics. In Eurographics State of the Art Reports.
• 27: J. Painter , K. Sloan, Antialiased ray tracing by adaptive progressive refinement, Proceedings of the 16th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.281-288, July 1989
• 28: Prikryl, J., and Purgathofer, W. 1999. Overview of perceptually-driven radiosity methods. Tech. Rep. TR-186-2-99-26, Vienna, Austria.
• 29: Mahesh Ramasubramanian , Sumanta N. Pattanaik , Donald P. Greenberg, A perceptually based physical error metric for realistic image synthesis, Proceedings of the 26th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.73-82, July 1999 [doi>10.1145/311535.311543]
• 30: P. Shirley, A ray tracing method for illumination calculation in diffuse-specular scenes, Proceedings on Graphics interface '90, p.205-212, June 1990, Halifax, Nova Scotia
• 31: F. Sillion , C. Puech, A general two-pass method integrating specular and diffuse reflection, Proceedings of the 16th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.335-344, July 1989
• 32: Philipp Slusallek , Marc Stamminger , Wolfgang Heidrich , Jan-Christian Popp , Hans-Peter Seidel, Composite Lighting Simulations with Lighting Networks, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.18 n.2, p.22-31, March 1998 [doi>10.1109/38.656787 ]
• 33: William A. Stokes , James A. Ferwerda , Bruce Walter , Donald P. Greenberg, Perceptual illumination components: a new approach to efficient, high quality global illumination rendering, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.23 n.3, August 2004
• 34: Sundstedt, V., Chalmers, A., Cater, K., and Debattista, K. 2004. Top-down visual attention for efficient rendering of task related scenes. In Vision, Modeling and Visualization.
• 35: V. Sundstedt , K. Debattista , P. Longhurst , A. Chalmers , T. Troscianko, Visual attention for efficient high-fidelity graphics, Proceedings of the 21st spring conference on Computer graphics, May 12-14, 2005, Budmerice, Slovakia [doi>10.1145/1090122.1090150]
• 36: Wald, I., Purcell, T. J., Schmittler, J., Benthin, C., and Slusallek, P. 2003. Realtime Ray Tracing and its use for Interactive Global Illumination. In Eurographics State of the Art Reports.
• 37: John R. Wallace , Michael F. Cohen , Donald P. Greenberg, A two-pass solution to the rendering equation: A synthesis of ray tracing and radiosity methods, Proceedings of the 14th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.311-320, August 1987
• 38: Gregory J. Ward , Francis M. Rubinstein , Robert D. Clear, A ray tracing solution for diffuse interreflection, Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.85-92, June 1988
• 39: Yarbus, A. 1967. Eye movements during perception of complex objects. In Eye Movements and Vision, 171--196.
• 40: Hector Yee , Sumanita Pattanaik , Donald P. Greenberg, Spatiotemporal sensitivity and visual attention for efficient rendering of dynamic environments, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.20 n.1, p.39-65, Jan. 2001 [doi>10.1145/383745.383748]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism

Keywords:
global illumination, selective rendering, time constraints