Casting Shadows in Real Time

Information

• Publication Type: Other Reviewed Publication
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • Rendering and Modeling
• Date: 2009
• Booktitle: ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Courses
• Location: Yokohama, Japan
• Publisher: ACM
• Note: Lecturer: Daniel Scherzer
• Conference date: 16. December 2009 – 19. December 2009

Abstract

Shadows are crucial for enhancing realism and provide important visual cues. In recent years, many important contributions have been made both for hard shadows and soft shadows. Often spurred by the tremendous increase of computational power and capabilities of graphics hardware, much progress has been made concerning visual quality and speed, making high-quality real-time shadows a reachable goal. But with the growing wealth of available choices, it is particularly difficult to pick the right solution and assess shortcomings. Because currently there is no ultimate approach available, algorithms should be selected in accordance to the context in which shadows are produced. The possibilities range across a wide spectrum; from very approximate but really efficient to slower but accurate, adapted only to smaller or only to larger sources, addressing directional lights or positional lights, or involving GPU- or CPU-heavy computations. This course tries to serve as a guide to better understand limitations and failure cases, advantages and disadvantages, and suitability of the algorithms for different application scenarios. We will focus on real-time to interactive solutions but also discuss offline approaches if needed for a better understanding.

Additional Files and Images

Weblinks

• http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=1665817&type=proceeding&coll=Portal&dl=GUIDE&CFID=72600502&CFTOKEN=13110597

BibTeX

@inproceedings{WIMMER-2009-CSR,
  title =      "Casting Shadows in Real Time",
  author =     "Elmar Eisemann and Ulf Assarsson and Michael Schwarz and
               Michael Wimmer",
  year =       "2009",
  abstract =   "Shadows are crucial for enhancing realism and provide
               important visual cues. In recent years, many important
               contributions have been made both for hard shadows and soft
               shadows. Often spurred by the tremendous increase of
               computational power and capabilities of graphics hardware,
               much progress has been made concerning visual quality and
               speed, making high-quality real-time shadows a reachable
               goal. But with the growing wealth of available choices, it
               is particularly difficult to pick the right solution and
               assess shortcomings. Because currently there is no ultimate
               approach available, algorithms should be selected in
               accordance to the context in which shadows are produced. The
               possibilities range across a wide spectrum; from very
               approximate but really efficient to slower but accurate,
               adapted only to smaller or only to larger sources,
               addressing directional lights or positional lights, or
               involving GPU- or CPU-heavy computations. This course tries
               to serve as a guide to better understand limitations and
               failure cases, advantages and disadvantages, and suitability
               of the algorithms for different application scenarios. We
               will focus on real-time to interactive solutions but also
               discuss offline approaches if needed for a better
               understanding.",
  booktitle =  "ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Courses",
  location =   "Yokohama, Japan",
  publisher =  "ACM",
  note =       "Lecturer: Daniel Scherzer",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2009/WIMMER-2009-CSR/",
}