Simple Nested Dielectrics in Ray Traced Images

Charles M. Schmidt and Brian Budge
University of Utah

This paper appears in issue Volume 7, Number 2.
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Abstract

This paper presents a simple method for modeling and rendering refractive objects that are nested within each other. The technique allows the use of simpler scene geometry and can even improve rendering time in some images. The algorithm can be easily added into an existing ray tracer and makes no assumptions about the drawing primitives that have been implemented.

Author Information

Charles M. Schmidt, University of Utah, School of Computing, 55 S. Central Campus Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 cms@cs.utah.edu

Brian Budge, University of Utah, School of Computing, 50 S. Central Campus Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 budge@cs.utah.edu

Addendum

  • A colleague referred us to this related work: Michael Gervautz. “Consistent schemes for addressing surfaces when ray tracing transparent CSG objects.” Computer Graphics Forum, 11(4):203-211, 1992.

    This paper focuses on maintaining correctness of material properties on boundaries of explicitly defined CSG object using CSG-trees. For example, the boundary shared by (A - B) is ambiguous, do you choose A’s material or B’s material to perform shading? The paper describes a method for doing these sorts of CSG operations consistently.

    Dielectrics are mentioned in the paper, but only in the context of knowing which material to use at the interface could effect transmissions.

    Also, the idea of priorities is used, but they are implicitly defined by the order that the CSG object is defined (A union B would use A’s material, whereas B union A would use B’s), whereas our paper requires the user to explicitly define priorities.

BibTeX Entry

@article{SchmidtBudge02,
  author = "Charles M. Schmidt and Brian Budge",
  title = "Simple Nested Dielectrics in Ray Traced Images",
  journal = "journal of graphics, gpu, and game tools",
  volume = "7",
  number = "2",
  pages = "1-8",
  year = "2002",
}