O-buffer: a framework for sample-based graphics

We present an innovative modeling and rendering primitive, called the O-buffer, as a framework for sample-based graphics. The 2D or 3D O-buffer is, in essence, a conventional image or a volume, respectively, except that samples are not restricted to a regular grid. A sample position in the O-buffer is recorded as an offset to the nearest grid point of a regular base grid (hence the name O-buffer). The O-buffer can greatly improve the expressive power of images and volumes. Image quality can be improved by storing more spatial information with samples and by avoiding multiple resamplings. It can be exploited to represent and render unstructured primitives, such as points, particles, and curvilinear or irregular volumes. The O-buffer is therefore a unified representation for a variety of graphics primitives and supports mixing them in the same scene. It is a semiregular structure which lends itself to efficient construction and rendering. O-buffers may assume a variety of forms including 2D O-buffers, 3D O-buffers, uniform O-buffers, nonuniform O-buffers, adaptive O-buffers, layered-depth O-buffers, and O-buffer trees. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the O-buffer in a variety of applications, such as image-based rendering, point sample rendering, and volume rendering.

[1]  Leonard McMillan,et al.  Post-rendering 3D warping , 1997, SI3D.

[2]  Arie E. Kaufman,et al.  Hybrid volume and polygon rendering with cube hardware , 1999, Workshop on Graphics Hardware.

[3]  Loren C. Carpenter,et al.  The A -buffer, an antialiased hidden surface method , 1984, SIGGRAPH.

[4]  Arie E. Kaufman,et al.  Efficient algorithms for scan-converting 3D polygons , 1988, Comput. Graph..

[5]  Matthias Zwicker,et al.  Surfels: surface elements as rendering primitives , 2000, SIGGRAPH.

[6]  Voicu Popescu,et al.  High Quality 3D Image Warping by Separating Visibility from Reconstruction , 1999 .

[7]  Leif Kobbelt,et al.  Efficient High Quality Rendering of Point Sampled Geometry , 2002, Rendering Techniques.

[8]  Ronald N. Perry,et al.  Adaptively sampled distance fields: a general representation of shape for computer graphics , 2000, SIGGRAPH.

[9]  Anselmo Lastra,et al.  LDI tree: a hierarchical representation for image-based rendering , 1999, SIGGRAPH.

[10]  Andreas Schilling,et al.  A new simple and efficient antialiasing with subpixel masks , 1991, SIGGRAPH.

[11]  Ming Wan,et al.  Image based rendering with stable frame rates , 2000, Proceedings Visualization 2000. VIS 2000 (Cat. No.00CH37145).

[12]  Matthias Zwicker,et al.  Surface splatting , 2001, SIGGRAPH.

[13]  Pat Hanrahan,et al.  Shadow silhouette maps , 2003, ACM Trans. Graph..

[14]  Richard Szeliski,et al.  Layered depth images , 1998, SIGGRAPH.

[15]  Lee Westover,et al.  Footprint evaluation for volume rendering , 1990, SIGGRAPH.

[16]  Voicu Popescu,et al.  The WarpEngine: an architecture for the post-polygonal age , 2000, SIGGRAPH.

[17]  Arie E. Kaufman,et al.  An Algorithm for 3D Scan-Conversion of Polygons , 1987, Eurographics.

[18]  Dani Lischinski,et al.  Image-Based Rendering for Non-Diffuse Synthetic Scenes , 1998, Rendering Techniques.

[19]  Voicu Popescu,et al.  Images for Accelerating Architectural Walkthroughs , 1998, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[20]  Marc Levoy,et al.  QSplat: a multiresolution point rendering system for large meshes , 2000, SIGGRAPH.

[21]  Arie E. Kaufman,et al.  A framework for sample-based rendering with O-buffers , 2003, IEEE Visualization, 2003. VIS 2003..

[22]  William J. Dally,et al.  Point Sample Rendering , 1998, Rendering Techniques.

[23]  Jr. Leonard McMillan,et al.  An Image-Based Approach to Three-Dimensional Computer Graphics , 1997 .