Occlusion Ratio: a new Query Parameter for GPUs

Abstract

This work suggests improvements that can be added to current GPUs and graphic rendering APIs to increase occlusion culling performance, that is, to raise the frame rate that can be achieved using hardware occlusion queries. The proposal can be easily implemented in current GPU architectures. It extends the concept of object relevance in an image and introduces the occlusion ratio parameter. Numerical tests have been carried out using pre-processed data to demonstrate our proposal. These tests show that 800% mean frame rate improvements could be achieved if occlusion queries to the GPU would return occlusion ratio data. Moreover, in low occlusion density situations -worst cases with 60-80 percent objects visible-, results show that occlusion ratio data provides 60-400 percent improvements in the frame rate.