Hierarchical Higher Order Face Cluster Radiosity for Global Illumination Walkthroughs of Complex Non-Diffuse Environments

Abstract

We present an algorithm for simulating global illumination in scenes composed of highly tessellated objects withdiffuse or moderately glossy reflectance. The solution method is a higher order extension of the face cluster radiositytechnique. It combines face clustering, multiresolution visibility, vector radiosity, and higher order baseswith a modified progressive shooting iteration to rapidly produce visually continuous solutions with limited memoryrequirements. The output of the method is a vector irradiance map that partitions input models into areaswhere global illumination is well approximated using the selected basis. The programming capabilities of moderncommodity graphics architectures are exploited to render illuminated models directly from the vector irradiancemap, exploiting hardware acceleration for approximating view dependent illumination during interactive walkthroughs.Using this algorithm, visually compelling global illumination solutions for scenes of over one millioninput polygons can be computed in minutes and examined interactively on common graphics personal computers.Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture and Image Generation; I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism.