Trim Regions for Online Computation of From-Region Potentially Visible Sets

Information

• Publication Type: Journal Paper (without talk)
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • Instant Visualization and Interaction for Large Point Clouds
  • Rendering and Modeling
• Date: August 2023
• Article Number: 85
• DOI: 10.1145/3592434
• ISSN: 1557-7368
• Journal: ACM Transactions on Graphics
• Number: 4
• Pages: 15
• Volume: 42
• Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY
• Pages: 1 – 15
• Keywords: potentially visible sets, real-time, occlusion

Abstract

Visibility computation is a key element in computer graphics applications. More specifically, a from-region potentially visible set (PVS) is an established tool in rendering acceleration, but its high computational cost means a from-region PVS is almost always precomputed. Precomputation restricts the use of PVS to static scenes and leads to high storage cost, in particular, if we need fine-grained regions. For dynamic applications, such as streaming content over a variable-bandwidth network, online PVS computation with configurable region size is required. We address this need with trim regions, a new method for generating from-region PVS for arbitrary scenes in real time. Trim regions perform controlled erosion of object silhouettes in image space, implicitly applying the shrinking theorem known from previous work. Our algorithm is the first that applies automatic shrinking to unconstrained 3D scenes, including non-manifold meshes, and does so in real time using an efficient GPU execution model. We demonstrate that our algorithm generates a tight PVS for complex scenes and outperforms previous online methods for from-viewpoint and from-region PVS. It runs at 60 Hz for realistic game scenes consisting of millions of triangles and computes PVS with a tightness matching or surpassing existing approaches.

Additional Files and Images

Weblinks

• Entry in reposiTUm (TU Wien Publication Database)
• DOI: 10.1145/3592434

BibTeX

@article{voglreiter-2023-tro,
  title =      "Trim Regions for Online Computation of From-Region
               Potentially Visible Sets",
  author =     "Philip Voglreiter and Bernhard Kerbl and Alexander Weinrauch
               and Joerg Hermann Mueller and Thomas Neff and Markus
               Steinberger and Dieter Schmalstieg",
  year =       "2023",
  abstract =   "Visibility computation is a key element in computer graphics
               applications. More specifically, a from-region potentially
               visible set (PVS) is an established tool in rendering
               acceleration, but its high computational cost means a
               from-region PVS is almost always precomputed. Precomputation
               restricts the use of PVS to static scenes and leads to high
               storage cost, in particular, if we need fine-grained
               regions. For dynamic applications, such as streaming content
               over a variable-bandwidth network, online PVS computation
               with configurable region size is required. We address this
               need with trim regions, a new method for generating
               from-region PVS for arbitrary scenes in real time. Trim
               regions perform controlled erosion of object silhouettes in
               image space, implicitly applying the shrinking theorem known
               from previous work. Our algorithm is the first that applies
               automatic shrinking to unconstrained 3D scenes, including
               non-manifold meshes, and does so in real time using an
               efficient GPU execution model. We demonstrate that our
               algorithm generates a tight PVS for complex scenes and
               outperforms previous online methods for from-viewpoint and
               from-region PVS. It runs at 60 Hz for realistic game scenes
               consisting of millions of triangles and computes PVS with a
               tightness matching or surpassing existing approaches.",
  month =      aug,
  articleno =  "85",
  doi =        "10.1145/3592434",
  issn =       "1557-7368",
  journal =    "ACM Transactions on Graphics",
  number =     "4",
  pages =      "15",
  volume =     "42",
  publisher =  "ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY",
  pages =      "1--15",
  keywords =   "potentially visible sets, real-time, occlusion",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2023/voglreiter-2023-tro/",
}