Photon Streaming for Interactive Global Illumination in Dynamic Scenes

Daniel Meneveaux (1) , Flavien Bridault (1)

1 SIC

While many methods exist for physically computing diffuse light inter-reflexions, relatively few of them are adapted to dynamic scenes. Despite many approximations made on the formal rendering equation, managing dynamic environments at interactive or real-time frame rates still remains one of the most challenging problem of these years. This paper presents a lighting simulation system based on photon streaming, performed continuously on the CPU. The energy corresponding to each photon impact is associated to regions of space, defined by points and used during the rendering phase as virtual surface element light sources (VSLs). The rendering process can be performed interactively on the GPU, using several approximations. As shown in the results, our method provides high framerates for dynamic scenes, with moving objects or light sources.

Mots clés: photon tracing; GPU; rendering; lighting simulation

Domaines: Synthèse d'image et réalité virtuelle [cs.GR]

Daniel Meneveaux, Flavien Bridault. Photon Streaming for Interactive Global Illumination in Dynamic Scenes. 2008. ⟨hal-00331236⟩