Fast generation of depth of field effects in computer graphics

Abstract Depth of field and, in some circumstances, uniform defocusing are very important effects that should be taken into account for generating more realistic images, closely approximating a scene imaged by a real camera or seen by the human eye under poor visual conditions. Some algorithms for generation of such effects have already been given by other authors, but they are computationally expensive. This paper proposes a new technique for generating depth of field and defocus effects by adaptive smoothing filtering. Proposed algorithm is fast and suitable for real time applications, such as, for example, visual simulators.