Abstract We present a technique for rendering reflections on complex reflectors at interactive rates based on approximating the geometry of the reflected scene with impostors. The reflections correctly convey the distance to the reflector surface and provide motion parallax. Two types of impostors are adapted to the reflections framework: billboards and depth maps. Billboards remove most of the problems of environment mapped reflections at only a small additional cost. Second order reflections are supported by introducing reflective billboards. Higher quality reflections that provide motion parallax within a reflected object are obtained by approximating the reflective geometry with depth maps. The computation of the intersection between a reflected ray and a depth map is accelerated by leveraging epipolar constraints. Like environment mapping, our technique does not pose any restriction on the geometry of the reflector, supports dynamic scenes, and runs at interactive rates with the help of graphics hardware. Categories and Subject Descriptors (ACM CCS): I.3.3. [Computer Graphics]—Three‐Dimensional Graphics and Realism.

This paper presents sample-based cameras for rendering high quality reflections on convex reflectors at interactive rates. The method supports change of view, moving objects and reflectors, higher order reflections, view-dependent lighting of reflected objects, and reflector surface properties. In order to render reflections with the feed forward graphics pipeline, one has to project reflected vertices. A sample-based camera is a collection of BSP trees of pinhole cameras that jointly approximate the projection function. It is constructed from the reflected rays defined by the desired view and the scene reflectors. A scene point is projected by invoking only the cameras that contain it in their frustums. Reflections are rendered by projecting the scene geometry and then rasterizing in hardware.

We introduce the occlusion camera: a non-pinhole camera with 3D distorted rays. Some of the rays sample surfaces that are occluded in the reference view, while the rest sample visible surfaces. The extra samples alleviate disocclusion errors. The silhouette curves are pushed back, so nearly visible samples become visible. A single occlusion camera covers the entire silhouette of an object, whereas many depth images are required to achieve the same effect. Like regular depth images, occlusion-camera images have a single layer thus the number of samples they contain is bounded by the image resolution, and connectivity is defined implicitly. We construct and use occlusion-camera images in hardware. An occlusion-camera image does not guarantee that all disocclusion errors are avoided. Objects with complex geometry are rendered using the union of the samples stored by a planar pinhole camera and an occlusion camera depth image. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.3. [Computer Graphics]—Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism.

Abstract In this paper, we propose a real‐time method for rendering soft shadows and inter‐reflections of dynamic objects under complex illumination. In previous methods, many efforts were taken to acquire occlusion and reflection informations for dynamic scene on the fly, and the result image cannot be generated in real time. In our approach, these informations for each object are pre‐computed and stored in well‐defined Spherical Radiance Transport Maps (SRTMs). For distant complex illumination such as environment illumination and area light source, we decompose the illumination to several hundred directional lights. In rendering, we search in SRTMs for occlusion info which may cause shadows, and reflection info which may cause inter‐reflections. Finally we produce realistic soft shadows and inter‐reflections efficiently. Our method is related with but different from previous Pre‐computed Radiance Transfer techniques which are only suitable for static scene. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: shading and shadowing