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Improving cache placement for efficient cache-based rendering

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Abstract

This paper proposes a new method to improve cache placement for various rendering algorithms using caching techniques. The proposed method comprises two stages. The first stage computes an initial cache distribution based on shading points’ geometric proximity. We present a view-guided method to cluster shading points based on their world-space positions and surface normals, while considering the camera view to avoid producing small clusters in the final image. The proposed method is more robust and easier to control than previous shading point clustering methods. After computing the shading functions at the initial cache locations, the second stage of our method utilizes the results to allocate additional caches to regions with shading discontinuities. To achieve this, a discontinuity map is created to identify these regions and used to insert new caches based on importance sampling. We integrate the proposed method into several cache-based algorithms, including irradiance caching, importance caching, and ambient occlusion. Extensive experiments show that our method outperforms other cache distributions, producing better results both numerically and visually.

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Data Availability Statement

The source code and test scenes used in this work are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, and the creators or providers of the models and textures used in this paper: Staircase, CornellBox, DiningRoom, Bathroom, and Kitchen, via Benedikt Bitterli’s rendering resources [34]; CrytekSponza, Conference, and Sibenik from McGuire Computer Graphics Archive [35]; This work was supported in part by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) under grants 111-2222-E-305-001-MY2 and JSPS Grant-in-Aid JP23K16921.

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  1. Computer Science Department, National Taipei University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Yu-Ting Wu

  2. Computer Science Department, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    I-Chao Shen

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Correspondence to Yu-Ting Wu.

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The following are potential conflicts of interest: \(\bullet \) Yung-Yu Chuang (https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cyy/) \(\bullet \) Tzu-Mao Li (https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~tzli/)

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Wu, YT., Shen, IC. Improving cache placement for efficient cache-based rendering. Vis Comput (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-023-03231-z

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