Interactive GPU-assisted ray tracing. / Traçado de raios interativo assistido pela unidade de processamento gráfico.
AUTOR(ES)
Daniel Alberto Balciunas
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO
2007
RESUMO
Known by its high computational cost and by the high quality rendered imagens, ray tracing has been most recently explored by the scientific community in researches for interactive and constant frame rate. Aiming for a new way for optimizing ray tracing, a new approach called GPU-assisted ray tracing is defined in this work. Its objective is to be a first step in the formulation of ray tracing algorithms that take better advantage of graphics processing units commonly found in personal computers nowadays. Based on this approach, several contributions are proposed in this work. Besides presenting the basic concepts for ray tracing and a literature review of the most relevant topics, this work also explains and exemplifies some classical algorithms that are used as a base for the new algorithms here presented. As main contribution, we propose and implement an algorithm that calculates the initial points for traversing spatial subdivision structures, for tracing primary rays in height maps from a distance-buffer rendered by the video card. A second algorithm is proposed as well, where an object-buffer is rendered by the video card to accelerate the traversal of rays in spatial subdivision structures for scenes with generic primitives. Individual contributions are made, in this work, in rendering height maps by defining the following algorithms: the analytic bilinear reconstruction algorithm, the double bi-quadratic interpolation algorithm, the prediction by inclined height planes algorithm and the level of detail mapping for surface reconstruction in voxel-based models algorithm. A brief discussion about the future of GPU-assisted ray tracing algorithms and its implementation in graphical clusters is presented at the end of this work, exploiting new possibilities for its continuation and for related research topics.
ASSUNTO(S)
graphics algorithms algoritmos gráficos hardware gráfico renderização graphics hardware rendering
