Interactive direct illumination in dynamic scenes using graphics APIs

Abstract

We present a progressive refinement system for rendering direct illumination at interactive rates for dynamic scenes using available graphics APIs. We achieve the progression by subdividing object surfaces using a quad-tree approach. Integrating the visibility and illumination, we can render scenes with soft shadows, taking into account the BRDFs of the scene objects. Our system allows a user to specify the desired frame rates, and the system will achieve such rates with the available time budget. Our system can also render dynamic scenes where the system restores the initial meshes and calculates illumination, producing finer but accurate soft shadows during iterative refinements.