Space-Time Hierarchical Radiosity

Abstract

This paper presents a new hierarchical simulation algorithm allowing the calculation of radiosity solutions for time-dependent scenes where all motion is known a priori. Such solutions could, for instance, be computed to simulate subtle lighting effects (indirect lighting) in animation systems, or to obtain highquality synthetic image sequences to blend with live action video and film. We base our approach on a Space-Time hierarchy, adding a life span to hierarchical surface elements, and present an integrated formulation of Hierarchical Radiosity with this extended hierarchy. We discuss the expected benefits of the technique, review the challenges posed by the approach, and propose first solutions for these issues, most notably for the space-time refinement strategy. We show that a short animation sequence can be computed rapidly at the price of a sizeable memory cost. These results confirm the potential of the approach while helping to identify areas of promising future work.