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Andrew J. Willmott, Paul S. Heckbert, Michael Garland
Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, June '99
(13 pages.)
Abstract
An algorithm for simulating diffuse interreflection in complex three
dimensional scenes is described. It combines techniques from hierarchical
radiosity and multiresolution modelling. A new face clustering technique
for automatically partitioning polygonal models is used. The face clusters
produced group adjacent triangles with similar normal vectors. They are
used during radiosity solution to represent the light reflected by a complex
object at multiple levels of detail. Also, the radiosity method is reformulated
in terms of vector irradiance and power. Together, face clustering and
the vector formulation of radiosity permit large savings. Excessively fine
levels of detail are not accessed by the algorithm during the bulk of the
solution phase, greatly reducing its memory requirements relative to previous
methods. Consequently, the costliest steps in the simulation can be made
sub-linear in scene complexity. Using this algorithm, radiosity simulations
on scenes of one million input polygons can be computed on a standard workstation.
The paper is online in the following formats:
Note: This work has since been expanded on, with particular attention paid to developing bounds for radiosity transfer, and the analysis of the role of intra-cluster visibility in our method. Full details are available in Andrew's PhD thesis, which is available online, along with source code both for creating face cluster hierarchies and performing face cluster radiosity.
Please send any comments or suggestions to us at
ajw@cs.cmu.edu,
ph@cs.cmu.edu,
garland@cs.cmu.edu.