基于GPU和均匀栅格法的光线追踪算法研究

由于GPU(图形处理器)性能的大幅提高和可编程性的发展,基于GPU的光线追踪算法逐渐成为研究热点。光线追踪算法需要的计算量大,基于此,分析了光线追踪算法的基本原理,在NVIDIA公司的CUDA(计算统一设备体系结构)环境下采用均匀栅格法作为加速结构实现了光线追踪算法。实验结果表明,该计算模式相对于传统基于CPU的光线追踪算法具有更快的整体运算速度,GPU适合处理高密度数据计算。     

基于CUDA的光线追踪优化算法研究与实现

在三维场景仿真过程中,为了实现真实的光影效果,通常采用光线追踪法对场景进行渲染。光线追踪算法的核心过程是光线与场景中的片元进行相交测试,而对于一个复杂的场景,该过程计算量非常大。为了改善光线追踪算法的计算速度问题,实现一种基于CUDA(Compute Unified Device Architecture)的光线追踪算法。该算法利用GPU的并行处理能力同时结合KD-Tree加速相交测试过程,最终提高仿真场景的渲染速度。通过实验表明,该算法的KD-Tree创建性能相比传统方法提升约20%,光线追踪性能提升约6倍。     

实时光线追踪相关研究综述

光线追踪因其渲染效果的真实性,长期以来被视为下一代主流图像渲染技术,是计算机图形学领域的热点研究方向。近年来,学术界和商业界对实时光线追踪开展了广泛研究。为促进实时光线追踪的研究,对相关文献进行归纳、分析和总结。首先阐述了光线追踪的概念、算法、加速数据结构等理论知识;介绍了三款支持光线追踪商用图形处理器（GPU）,并对比了之间的差异;从光线束遍历、无栈遍历、光线重排序、多分支BVH、降噪技术、与神经网络结合的实时光线追踪这六个方法综述了光线追踪的算法优化工作,并阐明了相关具体方法的优缺点;在算法加速的基础上,对使用GPU优化加速和采用定制化设计的硬件加速进行了归纳分析;最后对文章的内容进行了总结,指出了实时光线追踪仍面临的困难,并对未来的发展方向进行了展望。可以帮助研究人员系统地了解实时光线追踪的研究现状,为后续开展相关研究提供思路。     

基于BRDF 和GPU 并行计算的全局光照实时渲染

基于光线追踪,将屏幕图像像素分解为投射光线与场景对象交点面片辐射亮度和 纹理贴图的合成,每个面片的辐射亮度计算基于双向反射分布函数(BRDF)基的线性组合,并通 过图形处理器(GPU)处理核心并行绘制进行加速,最后与并行计算的纹理映射结果进行合成。 提出了一种基于BRDF 和GPU 并行计算的全局光照实时渲染算法,利用GPU 并行加速,在提 高绘制效率的前提下,实现动态交互材质的全局光照实时渲染。重点研究：对象表面对光线的 多次反射用BRDF 基的线性组合来表示,将非线性问题转换为线性问题,从而提高绘制效率; 利用GPU 并行加速,分别计算对象表面光辐射能量和纹理映射及其线性组合,进一步提高计算 效率满足实时绘制需求。     

一种基于GPU的预计算辐射度传递全频阴影算法

针对基于CPU的实时渲染全频阴影算法中内存使用效率低下、CPU运算能力消耗严重等问题,提出了基于GPU的改进算法．在预计算过程中使用基于小波变换的预计算辐射度传递（PRT）算法生成PRT矩阵,然后将其编码为易于被GPU使用的稀疏形式;在渲染过程中使用具有高度并行性的片断渲染器程序进行稀疏矩阵向量快速乘法计算,以求得最终渲染结果．相对于目前基于CPU的相应算法,算法充分利用了GPU的并行计算能力,平衡了CPU与GPU之间的负载,并同时降低了内存消耗．在一般情况下,算法可以获得超过一个数量级的性能提升．     

基于GPU的光子映射并行化算法

针对串行情况下光子映射算法速度慢的问题,对光子映射算法并行化进行可行性分析,充分利用图像处理器(GPU)的统一设备计算架构(CUDA)的并行和计算能力,实现光子映射算法的并行化。同时针对算法中光子发射追踪阶段生成GPU线程数与光子数相同的方法的不足以及平均分配方法所造成的资源浪费等,提出线程之间协同工作的方法并采用动态平衡处理,使光子渲染速度提升了将近一倍。实验结果证明了多线程间协同工作及动态平衡相结合方法的有效性。     

基于光线投射的全GPU实现的地形渲染算法

地形渲染算法需要处理大量的地形及纹理数据,影响三维动画显示的流畅性和性能提高。随着GPU绘制能力提高,CPU与GPU的负载失衡逐渐成为制约性能提高的瓶颈。结合现代GPU体系结构,在GPU上实现了基于光线投射（Ray Casting）的地形渲染算法。算法简化了Ray Casting算法,把LOD策略和预裁剪统一到GPU中实现,保证了CPU和GPU之间的负载平衡,同时简化了应用程序的编制。为获得较好效果,还采用查找表（Lookup—Table）的实时纹理合成算法合成纹理,进一步降低了CPU处理纹理数据的开销。实验表明,本文算法不仅充分利用了GPU的处理能力,还降低了CPU负载,提高了动态三维重建的帧刷新率,并获得较逼真的渲染效果。     

多通道快速GPU光线投射算法

现有基于GPU加速的光线投射算法为满足实时交互的需求,通常在用户交互过程中,采用降低采样频率的方法来提高重建速度,却丢失了三维数据场的信息,极大降低了重建图像的质量.针对这一问题,在分析GPU渲染管道线和图像插值重建技术的基础上,提出多通道快速GPU光线投射算法.利用离屏渲染技术,设置比显示分辨率低4～16倍的渲染分辨率,在此渲染分辨率下进行正常采样的光线投射算法,将渲染分辨率下重建结果重新作为输入,进行高分辨率重建,并显示结果.实验结果表明,该方法可以在满足重建图像质量的前提下,有效提高重建速度.     

基于图形处理器的通用计算模式*

针对GPU图形处理的特点,分析其应用于通用计算的并行处理机制和数据映射,提出了一种GPU通用计算模式的映射机制和一般性设计方法,并针对GPU的吞吐量、数据流处理能力和基本数学运算能力等进行性能测试,为GPU通用计算的算法设计、实现和性能优化提供参考依据。     

采用Intel集成众核架构的并行光线追踪加速方法

针对真实感渲染光线追踪流程中光线和场景求交计算量大、渲染速度慢的问题,提出一种基于Intel集成众核架构的并行光线追踪加速方法.在场景预处理阶段,首先构建四分支场景加速结构,以适应于MIC的硬件架构.在光线追踪阶段,首先通过CPU主核控制光线追踪整体流程,该主核采用多线程调度优化策略,调度MIC从核进行光线和场景树的求交操作,实现CPU和MIC的异步数据传输,充分利用主从核的计算能力;在MIC从核的光线和场景树求交过程中提出一种并行求交算法,充分利用MIC宽SIMD处理单元,实现光线和场景树4个结点并行求交的向量化操作,以加速求交过程.实验结果表明,与CPU原生模式相比,文中方法在光线求交阶段可达到2~4倍的加速效果,整体光线追踪流程渲染速度亦得到显著提升.     

CHC+RT: Coherent Hierarchical Culling for Ray Tracing

We propose a new technique for in‐core and out‐of‐core GPU ray tracing using a generalization of hierarchical occlusion culling in the style of the CHC++ method. Our method exploits the rasterization pipeline and hardware occlusion queries in order to create coherent batches of work for localized shader‐based ray tracing kernels. By combining hierarchies in both ray space and object space, the method is able to share intermediate traversal results among multiple rays. We exploit temporal coherence among similar ray sets between frames and also within the given frame. A suitable management of the current visibility state makes it possible to benefit from occlusion culling for less coherent ray types like diffuse reflections. Since large scenes are still a challenge for modern GPU ray tracers, our method is most useful for scenes with medium to high complexity, especially since our method inherently supports ray tracing highly complex scenes that do not fit in GPU memory. For in‐core scenes our method is comparable to CUDA ray tracing and performs up to 5.94 × better than pure shader‐based ray tracing.     

Towards multi-perspective rasterization

We present a novel framework for real-time multi-perspective rendering. While most existing approaches are based on ray-tracing, we present an alternative approach by emulating multi-perspective rasterization on the classical perspective graphics pipeline. To render a general multi-perspective camera, we first decompose the camera into piecewise linear primitive cameras called the general linear cameras or GLCs. We derive the closed-form projection equations for GLCs and show how to rasterize triangles onto GLCs via a two-pass rendering algorithm. In the first pass, we compute the GLC projection coefficients of each scene triangle using a vertex shader. The linear raster on the graphics hardware then interpolates these coefficients at each pixel. Finally, we use these interpolated coefficients to compute the projected pixel coordinates using a fragment shader. In the second pass, we move the pixels to their actual projected positions. To avoid holes, we treat neighboring pixels as triangles and re-render them onto the GLC image plane. We demonstrate our real-time multi-perspective rendering framework in a wide range of applications including synthesizing panoramic and omnidirectional views, rendering reflections on curved mirrors, and creating multi-perspective faux animations. Compared with the GPU-based ray tracing methods, our rasterization approach scales better with scene complexity and it can render scenes with a large number of triangles at interactive frame rates.     

Interactive Simulation of the Human Eye Depth of Field and Its Correction by Spectacle Lenses

This paper describes a fast rendering algorithm for verification of spectacle lens design. Our method simulates refraction corrections of astigmatism as well as myopia or presbyopia. Refraction and defocus are the main issues in the simulation. For refraction, our proposed method uses per-vertex basis ray tracing which warps the environment map and produces a real-time refracted image which is subjectively as good as ray tracing. Conventional defocus simulation was previously done by distribution ray tracing and a real-time solution was impossible. We introduce the concept of a blur field, which we use to displace every vertex according to its position. The blurring information is precomputed as a set of field values distributed to voxels which are formed by evenly subdividing the perspective projected space. The field values can be determined by tracing a wavefront from each voxel through the lens and the eye, and by evaluating the spread of light at the retina considering the best human accommodation effort. The blur field is stored as texture data and referred to by the vertex shader that displaces each vertex. With an interactive frame rate, blending the multiple rendering results produces a blurred image comparable to distribution ray tracing output.     

Interactive sound rendering in complex and dynamic scenes using frustum tracing

We present a new approach for simulating real-time sound propagation in complex, virtual scenes with dynamic sources and objects. Our approach combines the efficiency of interactive ray tracing with the accuracy of tracing a volumetric representation. We use a four-sided convex frustum and perform clipping and intersection tests using ray packet tracing. A simple and efficient formulation is used to compute secondary frusta and perform hierarchical traversal. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithm in an interactive system for complex environments and architectural models with tens or hundreds of thousands of triangles. Our algorithm can perform real-time simulation and rendering on a high-end PC.     

Fast ray tracing and the potential effects on graphics and gaming courses

The modern graphics processing units (GPUs), found on almost every personal computer, use the z-buffer algorithm to compute visibility. Ray tracing, an alternative to the z-buffer algorithm, delivers higher visual quality than the z-buffer algorithm but has historically been too slow for interactive use. However, ray tracing has benefited from improvements in computer hardware, and many believe it will replace the z-buffer algorithm as the graphics engine on PCs. If this replacement happens, it will imply fundamental changes in both the API to and capabilities of 3D graphics engines. This paper overviews the backgrounds in z-buffer and ray tracing, presents our case that ray tracing will replace z-buffer in the near future, and discusses the implications for graphics oriented classes should this switch to ray tracing occur. Since computer gaming is one of the most important industry driving graphics hardware and the fact that recently there are many computer science courses related to games and games development, we also describe the potential impact on games related classes.     

GPU加速的台风可视化方法

自然现象的可视化是计算机图形学和虚拟现实领域的重要研究内容。对传统光线投射算法分析的基础上进行改进,提出基于球壳体的光线投射算法。将GPU运用于球壳体数据场的体绘制,设计了基于球壳体数据场的顶点着色程序和像素着色程序。同时,对台风源数据格式进行解析,生成了用于台风可视化的体数据,采用提出的算法实现了台风云层和因子的可视化。实验结果表明,本文基于GPU的球壳体光线投射算法在球体表面较好地实现了实时台风可视化效果。     

Fast indirect illumination using Layered Depth Images

We present a novel hybrid rendering method for diffuse and glossy indirect illumination. A scene is rendered using standard rasterization on a GPU. In a shader, secondary ray queries are used to sample incident light and to compute indirect lighting. We observe that it is more important to cast many rays than to have precise results for each ray. Thus, we approximate secondary rays by intersecting them with precomputed layered depth images of the scene. We achieve interactive to real-time frame rates including indirect diffuse and glossy effects.     

Special relativistic visualization by local ray tracing

Special relativistic visualization offers the possibility of experiencing the optical effects of traveling near the speed of light, including apparent geometric distortions as well as Doppler and searchlight effects. Early high-quality computer graphics images of relativistic scenes were created using offline, computationally expensive CPU-side 4D ray tracing. Alternate approaches such as image-based rendering and polygon-distortion methods are able to achieve interactivity, but exhibit inferior visual quality due to sampling artifacts. In this paper, we introduce a hybrid rendering technique based on polygon distortion and local ray tracing that facilitates interactive high-quality visualization of multiple objects moving at relativistic speeds in arbitrary directions. The method starts by calculating tight image-space footprints for the apparent triangles of the 3D scene objects. The final image is generated using a single image-space ray tracing step incorporating Doppler and searchlight effects. Our implementation uses GPU shader programming and hardware texture filtering to achieve high rendering speed.     

Ray tracing CSG trees using the Sticks representation scheme

A fast ray tracing algorithm of CSG tree is presented. The algorithm uses an adaptive space subdivisions approach, based on the conversion of the objects of the scene into the volumetric Sticks representation scheme. This conversion scheme, which requires O(kn²) memory space to represent data in a n³ grid, makes it possible either to obtain very fast low-quality frontal orthographic projections, or to produce a high-quality rendering of the scene in time less than that needed by classical ray tracing and nearly independent of the number of objects in the scene. Furthermore, the characteristics of the Sticks scheme can be exploited to compute geometric or topological properties of the represented objects. Comparative analyses between the Sticks representation scheme and classical space subdivision schemes and between our Sticksbased ray tracing and classical algorithms are presented.     

加快光线跟踪计算的网格优化划分

网格是一类重要的光线跟踪加速结构,其结构简单、能快速创建.但是网格划分的尺度对光线跟踪的效率有很大的影响.针对此,提出一种代价预估计算方法.以度量网格划分对光线跟踪计算效率的影响,并由此计算网格优化划分的分辨率,首先根据模型类型和网格使用方式计算几种场景参数,分别预估网格创建、跟踪和空间的开销;然后根据不同应用需求,以相应的预估代价最小来进行网格的优化划分.与已有方法不同,文中方法考虑了场景中面片分布类型对网格划分的影响,提高了度量计算的精度;还综合考虑了网格创建时间、空间需求等因素,以便度量计算能根据绘制任务的不同进行相应的优化处理.该方法能更好地提高绘制效率,特别是能处理动态场景和面片非均匀分布的复杂场景,而这些是已有方法难以处理的.实验结果表明,文中方法的预估网格优化分辨率与实际的最优分辨率很接近,优于已有的类似工作.