research-article

Complex Luminaires: Illumination and Appearance Rendering

Authors:

Edgar Velázquez-Armendáriz,

Donald P. GreenbergAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), Volume 34, Issue 3

Article No.: 26, Pages 1 - 15

https://doi.org/10.1145/2714571

Published: 08 May 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Simulating a complex luminaire such as a chandelier is expensive and slow, even using state-of-the-art algorithms. A more practical alternative is to use precomputation to accelerate rendering. Prior approaches cached information on an aperture surface that separates the luminaire from the scene, but many luminaires have large or ill-defined apertures leading to excessive data storage and inaccurate results.

In this article, we separate luminaire rendering into illumination and appearance components. A precomputation stage simulates the complex light flow inside the luminaire to generate two data structures: a set of anisotropic point lights (APLs) and a radiance volume. The APLs are located near apparent sources and represent the light leaving the luminaire, allowing its nearand far-field illumination to be accurately and efficiently computed at render time. The luminaire's appearance consists of high- and low-frequency components, which are both visually important. High-frequency components are computed dynamically at render time, while the more computationally expensive low-frequency components are approximated using the precomputed radiance volume.

Results are shown for several complex luminaires, demonstrating orders of magnitude faster rendering compared to the best global illumination algorithms and higher fidelity with greatly reduced storage requirements compared to previous precomputed approaches.

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Cited By

Zhu JBai YXu ZBako SVelázquez-Armendáriz EWang LSen PHašan MYan L(2021)Neural complex luminairesACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/3450626.345979840:4(1-12)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3450626.3459798
Luksch CProst LWimmer M(2020)Real-time Approximation of Photometric Polygonal LightsProceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques10.1145/33845373:1(1-18)Online publication date: 4-May-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3384537
(2019)Dynamic load balance strategy for parallel rendering based on deferred shadingInternational Journal of Computational Science and Engineering10.5555/3337494.333750318:3(286-293)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3337494.3337503
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Complex Luminaires: Illumination and Appearance Rendering
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Computer graphics
    1. Rendering
      1. Ray tracing

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Graphics

ACM Transactions on Graphics Volume 34, Issue 3

April 2015

152 pages

ISSN:0730-0301

EISSN:1557-7368

DOI:10.1145/2774971

Editor:
Kavita Bala
Cornell University

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 08 May 2015

Accepted: 01 December 2014

Revised: 01 November 2014

Received: 01 June 2014

Published in TOG Volume 34, Issue 3

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Cited By

Zhu JBai YXu ZBako SVelázquez-Armendáriz EWang LSen PHašan MYan L(2021)Neural complex luminairesACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/3450626.345979840:4(1-12)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3450626.3459798
Luksch CProst LWimmer M(2020)Real-time Approximation of Photometric Polygonal LightsProceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques10.1145/33845373:1(1-18)Online publication date: 4-May-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3384537
(2019)Dynamic load balance strategy for parallel rendering based on deferred shadingInternational Journal of Computational Science and Engineering10.5555/3337494.333750318:3(286-293)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3337494.3337503
Gruson ARibardière MŠik MVorba JCozot RBouatouch KKřivánek J(2017)A Spatial Target Function for Metropolis Photon TracingACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/3072959.296309736:4(1)Online publication date: 16-Jul-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3072959.2963097
Blumer ANovák JHabel RNowrouzezahrai DJarosz W(2016)Reduced Aggregate Scattering Operators for Path TracingComputer Graphics Forum10.5555/3151666.315171335:7(461-473)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3151666.3151713
Gamito M(2016)Solid Angle Sampling of Disk and Cylinder LightsComputer Graphics Forum10.5555/3071773.307177735:4(25-36)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3071773.3071777
Gruson ARibardière MŠik MVorba JCozot RBouatouch KKřivánek J(2016)A Spatial Target Function for Metropolis Photon TracingACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/296309736:1(1-13)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2963097
Blumer ANovák JHabel RNowrouzezahrai DJarosz W(2016)Reduced Aggregate Scattering Operators for Path TracingComputer Graphics Forum10.1111/cgf.1304335:7(461-473)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.13043
Gamito M(2016)Solid Angle Sampling of Disk and Cylinder LightsComputer Graphics Forum10.1111/cgf.1294635:4(25-36)Online publication date: 27-Jul-2016
https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.12946

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