European Union, Commission of the European Communities

ESPRIT Open Long Term Research Programme


SIMULGEN

Realistic Simulation of Light for General Environments

ESPRIT Project #35772


This is the second phase of SIMULGEN (ESPRIT Project #25772).

Keywords

Global illumination, glossy reflection, participating media, fast interactive viewing, high quality image generation for animation

Objectives and results

Rendering glossy surfaces and participating media in a global illumination context is a challenging problem. Interior and lighting design as well as animation production all require the rendering of scenes including these phenomena. Current state-of-the-art restricts them to expensive and often unsatisfactory ray-tracing solutions, or limited, diffuse-only radiosity walk-through systems. In Phase I of SIMULGEN we evaluated the risks and potential of a new approach based on the finite-element radiosity framework. In Phase II we will be developing a robust pre-product level solution which will address two main markets:

(i) interactive viewing of general scenes, containing glossy surfaces and participating media

(ii) high-quality image production of general scenes for animation

Current state-of-the-art simply does not permit interactive viewing of such scenes, and thus the potential for the SIMULGEN approach is very strong. Acceleration of high-quality rendering such as path-tracing or other ray-tracing platforms is a strong requirement of the animation industry.
The goal of our project is to allow fast interactive viewing for general scenes, and greatly accelerated high-quality image generation for animation.

Approach

To achieve our goals we will address:

(a) the representation and control of glossy simulation

(b) acceleration of interactive display, including image-based rendering approaches

(c) improving the quality of reconstruction, for participating media as well as for the specific case of animation

Project Programme

Ongoing Work

Deliverables

Periodic Progress Reports

Presentations

Minutes

Publications

Available Information

Technology Implementation Plan

Participants

Contact Point:

- Organisation:GGG-IIiA
University of Girona
- Name:Prof. Xavier Pueyo
- Address:Campus Montilivi
E-17071, Girona
- Phone:+34 972 418447
- Fax:+34 972 418259
- E-mail:xavier@ima.udg.es
- Web site:http://iiia.udg.es/Simulgen
2nd November 2000