Start of funding 01.07.2004

Photo-realistic natural lighting of large scenes using

Prof. Dr. Marc Stamminger
Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Lehrstuhl für Informatik 9 (Graphische Datenverarbeitung)

Prof. Dr. Henrik Wann Jensen
University of California, San Diego
Computer Graphics Laboratory



The long term goal of this research project is to bring photo-realistic rendering and interactive techniques using programmable graphics hardware together. The ever growing flexibility and enormous computational power of modern graphics chips makes the convergence of both research areas possible. While other researchers are concentrating on interactivity, we will focus more on photo-realism. New rendering techniques will be developed, that exploit the performance of graphics hardware without sacrificing image quality. The initial project will be the development of a new hardware accelerated rendering technique that uses high dynamic range (HDR) radiance maps to visualise large scenes with natural lighting. Arbitrary reflection properties (BRDFs) of surfaces will be integrated into the rendering system with programmable shaders in the Cg language. The result will be a photo-realistic image that looks as if it was taken in the original environment where the HDR map was captured. With upcoming graphics hardware, this process will get close to real-time.