Index rendering: hardware-efficient architecture for 3-D graphics in multimedia system

Real-time three-dimensional (3D) graphics is emerging rapidly in multimedia applications, but it suffers from requirements for huge computation, high bandwidth, and large buffer. In order to achieve hardware efficiency for 3D graphics rendering, we propose a novel approach named index rendering. The basic concept of index rendering is to realize a 3D rendering pipeline by using asynchronous multi-dataflows. Triangle information can be divided into several parts with each part capable of being transferred independently and asynchronously. Finally, all data are converged by the index to generate the final image. The index rendering approach can eliminate unnecessary operations in the traditional 3D graphics pipeline, the unnecessary operations are caused by the invisible pixels and triangles in the 3D scene. Previous work, deferred shading, eliminates the operations relating to invisible pixels, but it requires huge tradeoffs in bandwidth and buffer size. With index rendering, we can eliminate operations on both invisible pixels and triangles with fewer tradeoffs as compared with the deferred shading approach. The simulation and analysis results show that the index rendering approach can reduce 10%-70% of lighting operations when using the flat and Gouraud shading process and decrease 30%-95% when using Phong shading. Furthermore, it saves 70% of buffer size and 50%-70% of bandwidth compared with the deferred shading approach. The result also indicates that this approach of index rendering is especially suitable for low-cost portable rendering devices. Hence, index rendering is a hardware-efficient architecture for 3D graphics, and it makes rendering hardware more easily integrated into multimedia systems, especially system-on-a-chip (SOC) designs.     

使用GPU编程的光线投射体绘制算法

将传统的光线投射体绘制算法在具有可编程管线的图形处理器(GPU)上重新实现.首先将体数据作为三维纹理保存在显存中,然后通过编写顶点程序和片段程序将光线进入点/离开点计算和光线遍历的计算移入GPU中执行,最后根据不同的采样点颜色混合公式实现不同的绘制效果.文中算法仅需绘制一个四边形即可完成三维重建.实验结果表明:在进行光照效果的重建时,该算法能够达到实时交互的绘制要求,并能实现半透明等复杂绘制效果.     

Evaluating digital entertainment system performance

Digital entertainment systems - which encompass a broad range of applications, including smart phones, set-top boxes, MP3 players, DVD players and recorders, game consoles, and digital cameras - have become the driving force behind the expansion of the semiconductor market, outstripping even PCs. Consider, for example, that in 2003, smartphones represented about 3 percent of the 500 million mobile phones sold worldwide, with analysts expecting them to grow at triple-digit year-over-year rates. Moving beyond the voice-centric model, more than half of the 600 million mobile phones sold in 2004 included a color display and digital camera. The implementation of more advanced features such as accelerated 2D and 3D graphics, videoconferencing, mobile multimedia, and games has raised the performance requirements of these model. The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium's DENBench suite of digital media benchmarks provides a spectrum of tools for assessing and refining the video and audio performance of digital devices.     

支持Shader的Direct3D9应用程序透明并行化

根据图形处理器的最新可编程单元Vertex Shader和Pixel Shader的体系结构和单机Direct3D9应用程序的执行流程,提出支持Shader的Direct3D9应用程序在图形集群的透明并行化策略.图形集群的节点划分为资源分配和资源绘制节点,资源分配节点通过截取绘制接口将应用程序实时转换为6类绘制资源,包括命令流、Vertex Shader、Pixel Shader、顶点流、索引流和纹理流.资源绘制节点根据绘制资源的描述信息和资源数据重构出Direct3D9的绘制命令.图形集群中的所有绘制节点都保留全部的绘制资源,并且通过计算基于多流模式场景数据在屏幕空间的包围盒进行绘制任务划分.实验证明,使用,这种策略完全可以实现支持Shader的Direct3D9应用程序透明并行化.相对于单机绘制,基于图形集群的并行图形绘制不仅提高绘制性能而且得到较高绘制加速比.     

Hardware-based view-independent cell projection

We present two implementations of a view-independent cell projection algorithm for off-the-shelf programmable graphics hardware. Both implementations perform all computations for the projection and scan conversion of a set of tetrahedra on the graphics hardware and are therefore compatible with many of the hardware-accelerated optimizations for polygonal graphics, e.g., OpenGL vertex arrays and display lists. Apart from our actual implementations, we discuss potential improvements on future, more flexible graphics hardware and applications to interactive volume visualization of unstructured meshes.     

Discrete Line Congruences for Shading and Lighting

Two‐parameter families of straight lines (line congruences) are implicitly present in graphics and geometry processing in several important ways including lighting and shape analysis. In this paper we make them accessible to optimization and geometric computing, by introducing a general discrete version of congruences based on piecewise‐linear correspondences between triangle meshes. Our applications of congruences are based on the extraction of a so‐called torsion‐free support structure, which is a procedure analogous to remeshing a surface along its principal curvature lines. A particular application of such structures are freeform shading and lighting systems for architecture. We combine interactive design of such systems with global optimization in order to satisfy geometric constraints. In this way we explore a new area where architecture can greatly benefit from graphics.     

The irradiance volume

A major goal in computer graphics is realistic image synthesis. To this end, illumination methods have evolved from simple local shading models to physically based global illumination algorithms. Local illumination methods consider only the light energy transfer between an emitter and a surface (direct lighting), while global methods account for light energy interactions between all surfaces in an environment, considering both direct and indirect lighting. Even though the realistic effects that global illumination algorithms provide are frequently desirable, the computational expense of these methods is too great for many applications. Dynamic environments and scenes containing a very large number of surfaces often pose problems for global illumination methods. This article presents a different approach to calculating the global illumination of objects. Instead of striving for accuracy at the expense of performance, we rephrase the goal: to achieve a reasonable approximation with high performance. This places global illumination effects within reach of many applications in which visual appearance is more important than absolute numerical accuracy     

Synthesis and rendering of bidirectional texture functions on arbitrary surfaces

The bidirectional texture function (BTF) is a 6D function that describes the appearance of a real-world surface as a function of lighting and viewing directions. The BTF can model the fine-scale shadows, occlusions, and specularities caused by surface mesostructures. In this paper, we present algorithms for efficient synthesis of BTFs on arbitrary surfaces and for hardware-accelerated rendering. For both synthesis and rendering, a main challenge is handling the large amount of data in a BTF sample. To addresses this challenge, we approximate the BTF sample by a small number of 4D point appearance functions (PAFs) multiplied by 2D geometry maps. The geometry maps and PAFs lead to efficient synthesis and fast rendering of BTFs on arbitrary surfaces. For synthesis, a surface BTF can be generated by applying a texton-based sysnthesis algorithm to a small set of 2D geometry maps while leaving the companion 4D PAFs untouched. As for rendering, a surface BTF synthesized using geometry maps is well-suited for leveraging the programmable vertex and pixel shaders on the graphics hardware. We present a real-time BTF rendering algorithm that runs at the speed of about 30 frames/second on a mid-level PC with an ATI Radeon 8500 graphics card. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our synthesis and rendering algorithms using both real and synthetic BTF samples.     

基于移动终端屏幕分辨精度的网格简化算法

针对移动终端用户对三维物体的感知度与屏幕分辨率明显相关的特性,提出一种基于移动终端屏幕分辨精度的网格简化算法。算法定义了模型在目标屏幕上显示时的基准显示状态(BoV),并通过移动终端分辨率及物体的视距参数分别计算得到目标屏幕的分辨精度阈值及模型的分辨精度因子,通过加权二次误差度量(QEM)算法动态地删除不符合显示精度要求的冗余数据。算法易于实现,适用于手机、PDA等仅具备低分辨率屏幕的移动终端上的图形应用。实验结果说明新算法的有效性。     

A GPU-based light hierarchy for real-time approximate illumination

Illumination rendering, including environment lighting, indirect illumination, and subsurface scattering, plays an important role in many graphics applications such as games and VR systems. However, it is difficult to run in real-time due to its highly computational cost. We introduce a GPU-based light hierarchy for real-time approximation of the illumination. We store virtual point lights in images and then build the view-independent hierarchy of the lights into image pyramids, with a simple and rapid clustering strategy. We approximate the illumination with small numbers of groups of lights instead of large numbers of individual lights, using a new tree traversal algorithm on programmable graphics hardware. Although we implemented our method without occlusion, we obtained visually good results in many cases. Entire steps run on programmable graphics hardware in real-time without any preprocessing.     

基于GPU编程的真实感水面模拟绘制

提出基于GPU编程的真实感水面的优化实时渲染算法。介绍了各种水面渲染需要使用到的图形,数学处理技术。通过固定的顶点流实现了水波建模,凹凸映射贴图和纹理混合,水面的反射和折射等多种特效,并使用可编程流水线的补色渲染完成最后的水面绘制。实验证明该方法可以很好地模拟真实水面的渲染要求,可以满足3D游戏和动画中对水面渲染的需要。     

A Million Polygons,a Million Pixels: Which is Heavier?

The impressive progress of rendering software and hardware over the last two decades often leads to the – too rapid – conclusion that high-quality 3D imagery can now be incorporated in all sorts of applications. Interestingly, these advances allow more and more complex applications to be envisioned: however, an increase in processing power is not necessarily used to treat the same problem faster, but also creates a desire to attack larger problems. In many ways the models for visual simulation or engineering applications grow faster than the graphics systems! recent work on image-based rendering and modeling shows a growing awareness that traditional 3D methods may not scale well for the current and coming complexity levels. This talk will examine some of the challenges lying ahead for the development of future graphics applications. Specifically, when is it better to use pixels than polygons? when is a 3D model required? how can we mix and match competing approaches? can image-based approaches help for different applications such as lighting simulations? some issues related to network applications will also be discussed.     

一种面向移动3D图形的几何简化方法

移动3D图形计算是无线网络和图形学高速发展产生的新研究领域.由于无线网络带宽和移动终端设备显示分辨率的限制,需要将3D图形进行分解压缩,依据不同的分辨率进行内容转码.提出了一种基于改进Loop细分的几何模型简化算法.一个稠密的几何网格通过反复操作3个步骤:顶点分裂、奇点预测和重新三角化,生成由稀疏的基网格和一系列偏移量组成的渐进网格.在奇点预测过程中,将改进Loop细分模板作为预测器.由于Loop细分相关联的顶点数目少,提高了几何模型简化和重建的速度.渐进网格易于在无线网络上渐进传输,并可在移动终端上无损重建3D图形.实验表明,算法简单、效率高,适用于移动环境下3D图形的应用.     

Shading‐Based Surface Recovery Using Subdivision‐Based Representation

This paper presents subdivision‐based representations for both lighting and geometry in shape‐from‐shading. A very recent shading‐based method introduced a per‐vertex overall illumination model for surface reconstruction, which has advantage of conveniently handling complicated lighting condition and avoiding explicit estimation of visibility and varied albedo. However, due to its discrete nature, the per‐vertex overall illumination requires a large amount of memory and lacks intrinsic coherence. To overcome these problems, in this paper we propose to use classic subdivision to define the basic smooth lighting function and surface, and introduce additional independent variables into the subdivision to adaptively model sharp changes of illumination and geometry. Compared to previous works, the new model not only preserves the merits of the per‐vertex illumination model, but also greatly reduces the number of variables required in surface recovery and intrinsically regularizes the illumination vectors and the surface. These features make the new model very suitable for multi‐view stereo surface reconstruction under general, unknown illumination condition. Particularly, a variational surface reconstruction method built upon the subdivision representations for lighting and geometry is developed. The experiments on both synthetic and real‐world data sets have demonstrated that the proposed method can achieve memory efficiency and improve surface detail recovery.     

面向移动设备的可编程像素渲染器的设计

传统的图形处理器中的像素混合单元是用功能固定的电路来实现的,实现了一个高性能的面向移动设备的可编程像素渲染器的设计。该处理器采用定点数操作,实现了4路共128位的单指令多数据的运算单元和具备数据旁路功能的8级流水线。这些结构特性有效地减少了电路面积,提高了像素渲染器的运算速度。该像素渲染器在FPGA平台上的实验结果表明,用户可以通过编程实现自定义的像素混合算法,以渲染出各种不同的特殊效果。     

Improving shape depiction under arbitrary rendering

Based on the observation that shading conveys shape information through intensity gradients, we present a new technique called Radiance Scaling that modifies the classical shading equations to offer versatile shape depiction functionalities. It works by scaling reflected light intensities depending on both surface curvature and material characteristics. As a result, diffuse shading or highlight variations become correlated with surface feature variations, enhancing concavities and convexities. The first advantage of such an approach is that it produces satisfying results with any kind of material for direct and global illumination: we demonstrate results obtained with Phong and Ashikmin-Shirley BRDFs, Cartoon shading, sub-Lambertian materials, perfectly reflective or refractive objects. Another advantage is that there is no restriction to the choice of lighting environment: it works with a single light, area lights, and interreflections. Third, it may be adapted to enhance surface shape through the use of precomputed radiance data such as Ambient Occlusion, Prefiltered Environment Maps or Lit Spheres. Finally, our approach works in real time on modern graphics hardware making it suitable for any interactive 3D visualization.     

A short recipe for seashell synthesis

Several artistic examples of seashell-like forms produced on a graphics supercomputer are provided. The shapes were created using a simple graphics primitive and rendered using lighting and shading facilities of 3-D extensions to X Windows or the PHIGS+ proposed standard. It is expected that the techniques, equations, and systems will provide useful tools and stimulate future studies in the graphics characterization of morphologically rich spiral shapes produced by relatively simple generating formulas     

A memory-efficient unified early z-test

The Unified Early Z-Test (U-EZT) is proposed to examine the visibility of pixels during tile-based rasterization in a mobile 3D graphics processor. U-EZT combines the advantages of the Z-max and Z-min EZT algorithms: the Z-max algorithm is improved by the independently updatable z-max tiles and the use of mask bits; and the Z-min algorithm is improved by reusing the mask bits from the z-max test to update the z-min tiles after tile rasterizing. As a result, storage requirements are reduced to 3 bits per pixel, and simulations suggest that U-EZT requires 20 percent to 57 percent less memory bandwidth than previous EZT algorithms.