Article

Real-time soft shadows in dynamic scenes using spherical harmonic exponentiation

Authors:

Peter-Pike Sloan,

Baining GuoAuthors Info & Claims

SIGGRAPH '06: ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Papers

Pages 977 - 986

https://doi.org/10.1145/1179352.1141982

Published: 01 July 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Previous methods for soft shadows numerically integrate over many light directions at each receiver point, testing blocker visibility in each direction. We introduce a method for real-time soft shadows in dynamic scenes illuminated by large, low-frequency light sources where such integration is impractical. Our method operates on vectors representing low-frequency visibility of blockers in the spherical harmonic basis. Blocking geometry is modeled as a set of spheres; relatively few spheres capture the low-frequency blocking effect of complicated geometry. At each receiver point, we compute the product of visibility vectors for these blocker spheres as seen from the point. Instead of computing an expensive SH product per blocker as in previous work, we perform inexpensive vector sums to accumulate the log of blocker visibility. SH exponentiation then yields the product visibility vector over all blockers. We show how the SH exponentiation required can be approximated accurately and efficiently for low-order SH, accelerating previous CPU-based methods by a factor of 10 or more, depending on blocker complexity, and allowing real-time GPU implementation.

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Cited By

Wu Y(2024)Efficient Environment Map Rendering Based on DecompositionComputer Graphics Forum10.1111/cgf.15264Online publication date: 22-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.15264
Worchel MAlexa M(2023)Differentiable Shadow Mapping for Efficient Inverse Graphics2023 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)10.1109/CVPR52729.2023.00022(142-153)Online publication date: Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR52729.2023.00022
Jung WHyeon JDoh N(2022)Robust Cuboid Modeling from Noisy and Incomplete 3D Point Clouds Using Gaussian Mixture ModelRemote Sensing10.3390/rs1419503514:19(5035)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2022
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Index Terms

Real-time soft shadows in dynamic scenes using spherical harmonic exponentiation
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Computer vision
      1. Computer vision tasks
  2. Computer graphics
    1. Image manipulation
      1. Texturing
    2. Shape modeling
2. Theory of computation
  1. Randomness, geometry and discrete structures

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGGRAPH '06: ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Papers

July 2006

742 pages

ISBN:1595933646

DOI:10.1145/1179352

Conference Chair:
John Finnegan
Purdue University
,
Program Chair:
Julie Dorsey
Yale University

Copyright © 2006 ACM.

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Published: 01 July 2006

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SIGGRAPH06: Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference

July 30 - August 3, 2006

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SIGGRAPH '06 Paper Acceptance Rate 86 of 474 submissions, 18%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,822 of 8,601 submissions, 21%

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Cited By

Wu Y(2024)Efficient Environment Map Rendering Based on DecompositionComputer Graphics Forum10.1111/cgf.15264Online publication date: 22-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.15264
Worchel MAlexa M(2023)Differentiable Shadow Mapping for Efficient Inverse Graphics2023 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)10.1109/CVPR52729.2023.00022(142-153)Online publication date: Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR52729.2023.00022
Jung WHyeon JDoh N(2022)Robust Cuboid Modeling from Noisy and Incomplete 3D Point Clouds Using Gaussian Mixture ModelRemote Sensing10.3390/rs1419503514:19(5035)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14195035
Mézières PDesrichard FVanderhaeghe DPaulin M(2022)Harmonics Virtual Lights: Fast Projection of Luminance Field on Spherical Harmonics for Efficient RenderingComputer Graphics Forum10.1111/cgf.1456441:6(182-195)Online publication date: 27-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.14564
Mézières PMellado NBarthe LPaulin M(2022)Recursive analytic spherical harmonics gradient for spherical lightsComputer Graphics Forum10.1111/cgf.1448241:2(393-406)Online publication date: 24-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.14482
Sun Y(2022)Radiance Transfer of diffuse objects in dynamic scenes2022 4th International Conference on Communications, Information System and Computer Engineering (CISCE)10.1109/CISCE55963.2022.9851122(104-113)Online publication date: 27-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/CISCE55963.2022.9851122
Dorta Marques BGonzalez Clua EMontenegro ANader Vasconcelos C(2022)Spatially and color consistent environment lighting estimation using deep neural networks for mixed realityComputers and Graphics10.1016/j.cag.2021.08.007102:C(257-268)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cag.2021.08.007
Surajkanta YPal S(2022)Recognition of spherical segments using number theoretic properties of isothetic coversMultimedia Tools and Applications10.1007/s11042-022-14182-382:13(19393-19416)Online publication date: 23-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11042-022-14182-3
Xin HZhou ZAn DYan LXu KHu SYau S(2021)Fast and accurate spherical harmonics productsACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/3478513.348056340:6(1-14)Online publication date: 10-Dec-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478513.3480563
Mézières PPaulin M(2021)Efficient spherical harmonic shading for separable BRDFSIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Technical Communications10.1145/3478512.3488597(1-4)Online publication date: 14-Dec-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478512.3488597
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