Accelerating Shadow Rays Using Volumetric Occluders and Modified kd-Tree Traversal

dc.contributor.authorDjeu, Peteren_US
dc.contributor.authorKeely, Seanen_US
dc.contributor.authorHunt, Warrenen_US
dc.contributor.editorDavid Luebke and Philipp Slusalleken_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-10-29T15:48:17Z
dc.date.available2013-10-29T15:48:17Z
dc.date.issued2009en_US
dc.description.abstractMonte Carlo ray tracing remains a simple and elegant method for generating robust shadows. This approach, however, is often hampered by the time needed to evaluate the numerous shadow ray queries required to generate a high-quality image. We propose the use of volumetric occluders stored within a kd-tree in order to accelerate shadow rays cast on a closed, watertight mesh. Intersection with a volumetric occluder is much cheaper than intersection with mesh geometry, although performing these intersections requires modification to the traversal order through the kd-tree. We propose two such modifications, both of which enable the use of volumetric occluders for cheap shadow ray termination. We also propose using a software-managed cache to store and reuse volumetric occluders for even earlier termination. Our approach provides a performance improvement of up to 2.0x for our test scenes while producing images identical to those produced by the unaccelerated baseline.en_US
dc.description.seriesinformationHigh-Performance Graphicsen_US
dc.identifier.isbn978-1-60558-603-8en_US
dc.identifier.issn2079-8687en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1145/1572769.1572781en_US
dc.publisherThe Eurographics Associationen_US
dc.titleAccelerating Shadow Rays Using Volumetric Occluders and Modified kd-Tree Traversalen_US
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