Image rendering by adaptive refinement

ABSTRACT

This paper describes techniques for improving the performance of image rendering on personal workstations by using CPU cycles going idle while the user is examining a static image on the screen. In that spirit, we believe that a renderer's work is never done. Our goal is to convey the most information to the user as early as possible, with image quality constantly improving with time. We do this by first generating a crude image rapidly and then adaptively refining it where necessary as long as the user does not change viewing parameters. The renderer operates in a succession of phases, first displaying only vertices of polygons, next polygon edges, then flat shading polygons, then shadowing polygons, then Gouraud shading polygons, then Phong shading polygons, and finally anti-aliasing. Performance is enhanced by each phase using results from previous phases and trimming the amount of data needed by the next phase. In this way, only a fraction of the pixels in an image may be Phong shaded while the rest may be Gouraud or flat shaded. Similarly anti-aliasing is performed only on pixels around which there is significant color change. The system features fast response to user intervention, encourages user intervention at any moment, and makes useful the idle cycles in a personal computer.

References

1. ATHERTON78.Atherton, Peter, Kevin Weiler, and Donald Greenberg Polygon Shadow Generation. Computer Graphics, 12, No. 3 August 1978 pp. 275-281.
2. BAUMGART75.Baumgart, Bruce G. A Polyhedron Representation for Computer Vision. NCC 1975, pp. 589-596.
3. BLOOMENTHAL83.Bloomenthal, Jules Edge Inference with Applications to Antialiasing. Computer Graphics, 17, No. 3 July 1983 pp. 157-162.
4. CARPENTER84.Carpenter, Loren The A-buffer, an Antialiased Hidden Surface Method. Computer Graphics, 18, No. 3 July 1984 pp. 103-108.
5. CATMULL74.Catmull, Edwin E. A Subdivision Algorithm for Computer Display of Curved Surfaces. Ph.D. Diss. University of Utah December 1974.
6. CLARK76.Clark, James H. Hierarchical Geometric Models for Visible Surface Algorithms. Communications of the ACM, 19, No. 10 October 1976 pp. 547-554.
7. COOK84.Cook, Robert L. Shade Trees. Computer Graphics, 18, No. 3 July 1984 pp. 223-231.
8. CROW84.Crow, Franklin C. Summed-Area Tables for Texture Mapping. Computer Graphics, 18, No. 3 July 1984 pp. 207-212.
9. FORREST85.Forrest, A.R. Antialiasing in Practice in Fundamental Algorithms for Computer Graphics, Ed. Earnshaw, R.A. in Proc. of NATO ASI Series. Springer-Verlag, 1985 pp. 113-134.
10. FOURNIER82.Fournier, Alain, Don Fussell, and Loren C. Carpenter Computer Rendering of Stochastic Models. Communications of the ACM, 25, No. 6 June 1982 pp. 371-384.
11. FUCHS82.Fuchs, H., S.M. Pizer, E.R. Heinz, L.C. Tsai, and S.H. Bloomberg Adding a True 3-D Display to a Raster Graphic System. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2, No. 7 September 1982 pp. 73-78.
12. FUCHS85.Fuchs, Henry, Jack Goldfeather, Jeff P. Hultquist, Susan Spach, John D. Austin, Frederick P. Brooks, lr., John G. Eyles, and John Poulton Fast Spheres, Shadows, Textures, Transparencies, and Image Enhancements in Pixel- Planes. Computer Graphics, 19, No. 3 July 1985 pp. 111-120.
13. HALL83.Hall, Roy A., and Donald P. Greenberg A Testbed for Realistic Image Synthesis. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 3, No. 8 November 1983 pp. 10-20.
14. HILL83.Hill, F.S., Jr., Sheldon Walker, Jr., and Fuwen Gao Interactive Image Query System Using Progressive Transmission. Computer Graphics, 17, No. 3 July 1983 pp. 323-330.
15. HUNTER78.Hunter, G.M. Efficient Computation and Data Structures for Graphics. Ph.D. Diss. Princeton University 1978.
16. JACKINS80.Jack.ins, C., and Tanimoto, S.L. Oct-trees and Their Use in Representing Three-Dimensional Objects. Computer Graphics and Image Processing, 14, No. 3 November 1980 pp. 249-270.
17. KNOWLTON80.Knowlton, Ken Progressive Transmission of Grey-Scale and Binary Pictures by Simple, Efficient, and Lossless Encoding Schemes. Proceedings of the IEEE, 68, No. 7 July 1980 pp. 885-896.
18. LANE80.Lane, Jeffrey M., Loren C. Carpenter, James F. Blinn, and Turner Whitted Scan Line Methods for Displaying Parametrically Defined Surfaces. Communications of the ACM, 23, No. 1 January 1980 pp. 23-34.
19. LEE85.Lee, Mark E., Richard A. Redner, and Samuel P. Uselton Statistically Optimized Sampling for Distributed Ray Tracing. Computer Graphics, 19, No. 3 July 1985 pp. 61-67.
20. MACDOUGAL84.MacDougal, Paul D. Generation and Management of Object Description Hierarchies for Simplification of Image Generation. Ph.D. Diss. Ohio State University August 1984.
21. MEAGHER80.Meagher, D. Octree: A New Technique for the Representation, Manipulation and Display of Arbitrary 3-D Objects by Computer. Technical Report IPL-TR-80-111. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 1980.
22. MILLS84.Mills, Peter H., Henry Fuchs, and Stephen M. Pizer High-Speed Interaction on a Vibrating Mirror 3D Display. Proceedings of SPIE, 507 August 1984 pp. 93-101.
23. NEWMAN73.Newman, William M. and Robert F. Sproull Principles of Interactive Computer Graphics 1st Edition, McGraw-Hill 1973 pp. 123-124.
24. POULTON85.Poulton, John, Henry Fuchs, John D. Austin, John G. Eyles, Justin Heinecke, Cheng-Hong Hsieh, Jack Goldfeather, Jeff P. Hultquist, Susan Spach PIXEL-PLANES: Building a VLSI-Based Graphic System Proceedings of the 1985 Chapel Hill Conference on VLSI Computer Science Press pp. 35-60.
25. SAMET84.Samet, Hanan The Quadtree and Related Hierarchical Structures. A CM Computing Surveys, 16, No. 2 June 1984 pp. t87-260.
26. SLOAN79.Sloan, Kenneth R., Jr., and Steven L. Tanimoto Progressive Refinement of Raster Images. IEEE Transactions on Computers, c-28, No. 11 November 1979 pp. 871-874.
27. STRAUSS84.Strass, P., M. Shantis, and D. Laidlaw SCEFO: A Standard Scene Format for image Creation and Animation. Brown University Graphics Group Memo, 1984.
28. VANDAM86.Van Dam, A. Personal communication. 1986.
29. WHITTED80.Whitted, Turner An Improved Illumination Model for Shaded Display. Communications of the ACM, 23, No. 6 June 1980 pp. 343-349

Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Physical sciences and engineering

    • Engineering

• Computing methodologies

  • Computer graphics

    • Image manipulation

    • Rendering

      • Visibility

  • Modeling and simulation