AN INTERACTIVE METHOD FOR REFRACTIVE WATER CAUSTICS RENDERING USING COLOR AND DEPTH TEXTURES

Nuttachai Tipprasert, Pizzanu Kanongchaiyos

2006

Abstract

Realistic rendering of underwater scenes is one of the most anticipated research topics in computer graphics. Caustics are the important component enhancing the realism of this kind of scenes. Unfortunately, rendering caustics is a time consuming task. As a result, most existing algorithms cannot handle this at interactive rate. In recent years, volumetric texture based rendering algorithms have been proposed. They can render the underwater scene with caustics in real-time. However, these algorithms require large amount of memory and are restricted to non-complex scene. In this paper we present a new interactive caustics rendering algorithm which require less memory usage. In our proposed method, we represent each object as a pair of color and depth texture. Color texture is used to store the object image viewed from viewing rays which refracted at water surface. We calculate the light intensity distribution on this image and store the result back to the color texture. The depth texture is used in the intensity calculation process to improve accuracy of the caustics patterns. Our experiment shows that proposed algorithm can handle complex underwater scene with caustics at interactive time rate. While using a pair of color and depth in stead of volumetric texture, we can reduce memory usage significantly.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Tipprasert N. and Kanongchaiyos P. (2006). AN INTERACTIVE METHOD FOR REFRACTIVE WATER CAUSTICS RENDERING USING COLOR AND DEPTH TEXTURES . In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, ISBN 972-8865-39-2, pages 423-428. DOI: 10.5220/0001355404230428

in Bibtex Style

@conference{grapp06,
author={Nuttachai Tipprasert and Pizzanu Kanongchaiyos},
title={AN INTERACTIVE METHOD FOR REFRACTIVE WATER CAUSTICS RENDERING USING COLOR AND DEPTH TEXTURES},
booktitle={Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP,},
year={2006},
pages={423-428},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0001355404230428},
isbn={972-8865-39-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP,
TI - AN INTERACTIVE METHOD FOR REFRACTIVE WATER CAUSTICS RENDERING USING COLOR AND DEPTH TEXTURES
SN - 972-8865-39-2
AU - Tipprasert N.
AU - Kanongchaiyos P.
PY - 2006
SP - 423
EP - 428
DO - 10.5220/0001355404230428