| Real-Time Ray-Tracing of Implicit Surfaces on the GPU (2008) | |||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||
| The programmable graphics processor units (GPUs) have high computation capabilities but relatively limited bandwidth for data access. Compact representation of geometry using a suitable procedural or mathematical model and a ray-tracing mode of rendering fit the GPUs well, consequently. Several such representations including parametrics and subdivision surfaces have been explored in recent research. The important and widely applicable category of the general implicit surface has received less attention. In this paper, we present a ray-tracing procedure to render general implicit surfaces efficiently on the GPU. Though only fourth or lower order surfaces can be rendered using analytical roots, our adaptive marching points algorithm can ray-trace arbitrary implicit surfaces exactly, by sampling the ray at selected points till a root is found. Adapting the sampling step size based on a proximity measure and a horizon measure delivers high speed. Combining sampling with ideas from interval arithmetic provides robust root-isolation. Overall, a simple algorithm that fits the SIMD architecture of the GPU results in high performance. We ray-trace algebraic surfaces up to order 18 and non-algebraic surfaces including a Blinn’s blobby with 30 spheres at better than interactive frame rates. 1 | |||||||||||||||
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