Perception-guided global illumination solution for animation rendering

ABSTRACT

We present a method for efficient global illumination computation in dynamic environments by taking advantage of temporal coherence of lighting distribution. The method is embedded in the framework of stochastic photon tracing and density estimation techniques. A locally operating energy-based error metric is used to prevent photon processing in the temporal domain for the scene regions in which lighting distribution changes rapidly. A perception-based error metric suitable for animation is used to keep noise inherent in stochastic methods below the sensitivity level of the human observer. As a result a perceptually-consistent quality across all animation frames is obtained. Furthermore, the computation cost is reduced compared to the traditional approaches operating solely in the spatial domain.

REFERENCES

• 1: A.A. Apodaca and L. Gritz. Advanced RenderMan. Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.
• 2: P.R. Bevington and D.K. Robinson. Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1992.
• 3: 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]
• 4: Shenchang Eric Chen, Incremental radiosity: an extension of progressive radiosity to an interactive image synthesis system, Proceedings of the 17th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.135-144, September 1990, Dallas, TX, USA
• 5: C. Damez and F.X. Sillion. Space-Time Hierarchical Radiosity for High-Quality Animations. In Eurographics Rendering Workshop 1999, pages 235-246, 1999.
• 6: George Drettakis , François X. Sillion, Interactive update of global illumination using a line-space hierarchy, Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.57-64, August 1997 [doi>10.1145/258734.258772]
• 7: James A. Ferwerda , Peter Shirley , Sumanta N. Pattanaik , Donald P. Greenberg, A model of visual masking for computer graphics, Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.143-152, August 1997 [doi>10.1145/258734.258818]
• 8: David W. George , Francois X. Sillion , Donald P. Greenberg, Radiosity Redistribution for Dynamic Environments, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.10 n.4, p.26-34, July 1990 [doi>10.1109/38.56296]
• 9: S. Gibson and R.J. Hubbold. Efficient Hierarchical Refinement and Clustering for Radiosity in Complex Environments. Computer Graphics Forum, 15(5):297- 310, 1996.
• 10: B. Girod. The Information Theoretical Significance of Spatial and Temporal Masking in Video Signals. pages 178-187. Proc. of SPIE Vol. 1077, 1989.
• 11: Donald P. Greenberg, A framework for realistic image synthesis, Communications of the ACM, v.42 n.8, p.44-53, Aug. 1999 [doi>10.1145/310930.310970]
• 12: 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
• 13: W. Heidrich. Interactive Display of Global Illumination Solutions for Non- Diffuse Environments. In State of the Art Reports. Eurographics, 2000.
• 14: Henrik Wann Jensen, Global illumination using photon maps, Proceedings of the eurographics workshop on Rendering techniques '96, p.21-30, December 1996, Porto, Portugal
• 15: Malvin H. Kalos , Paula A. Whitlock, Monte Carlo methods. Vol. 1: basics, Wiley-Interscience, New York, NY, 1986
• 16: Alexander Keller, Instant radiosity, Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.49-56, August 1997 [doi>10.1145/258734.258769]
• 17: S. Muller, W. Kresse, and F. Schoeffel. A Radiosity Approach for the Simulation of Daylight. In Eurographics Rendering Workshop 1995, pages 137-146, 1995.
• 18: K. Myszkowski, P. Rokita, and T. Tawara. Perceptually-Informed Accelerated Rendering of High Quality Walkthrough Sequences. In Eurographics Rendering Workshop 1999, pages 5-18, 1999.
• 19: Jeffry Nimeroff , Julie Dorsey , Holly Rushmeier, Implementation and Analysis of an Image-Based Global Illumination Framework for Animated Environments, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, v.2 n.4, p.283-298, December 1996 [doi>10.1109/2945.556498]
• 20: W. Osberger. Perceptual Vision Models for Picture Quality Assessment and Compression Applications. Ph.D. thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1999.
• 21: X. Pueyo, D. Tost, I. Martin, and B. Garcia. Radiosity for Dynamic Environments. The Journal of Visualization and Comp. Animation, 8(4):221-231, 1997.
• 22: 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]
• 23: H. Rushmeier, G. Ward, C. Piatko, P. Sanders, and B. Rust. Comparing Real and Synthetic Images: Some Ideas About Metrics. In Eurographics Rendering Workshop 1995, pages 82-91, 1995.
• 24: F. Schoeffel and P. Pomi. Reducing Memory Requirements for Interactive Radiosity Using Movement Prediction. In Eurographics Rendering Workshop 1999, pages 225-234, 1999.
• 25: P. Shirley, B. Wade, P. M. Hubbard, D. Zareski, B. Walter, and D. P. Greenberg. Global Illumination via Density Estimation. In Eurographics Rendering Workshop 1995, pages 219-230, 1995.
• 26: Jack Tumblin , Holly Rushmeier, Tone Reproduction for Realistic Images, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.13 n.6, p.42-48, November 1993 [doi>10.1109/38.252554]
• 27: Valdimir Volevich , Karol Myszkowski , Andrei Khodulev , Edward A. Kopylov, Using the visual differences predictor to improve performance of progressive global illumination computation, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.19 n.2, p.122-161, April 2000 [doi>10.1145/343593.343611]
• 28: V. Volevich, K. Myszkowski, A.B. Khodulev, and E.A. Kopylov. Perceptually- Informed Progressive Global Illumination Solution. Technical Report TR-99-1- 002, Department of Computer Science, Aizu University, February 1999.
• 29: Bruce Jonathan Walter , Donald P. Greenberg, Density estimation techniques for global illumination, 1998
• 30: Gregory J. Ward, The RADIANCE lighting simulation and rendering system, Proceedings of the 21st annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.459-472, July 1994 [doi>10.1145/192161.192286]
• 31: Y.L.H. Yee. Spatiotemporal Sensitivity and Visual Attention for Efficient Rendering of Dynamic Environments. M.Sc. thesis, Cornell University, 2000.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
          Subjects: Animation
  I.4 IMAGE PROCESSING AND COMPUTER VISION
      I.4.8 Scene Analysis
          Subjects: Time-varying imagery

General Terms:
Design, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
Monte Carlo techniques, animation, human factors, illumination, temporal aliasing