Ray Traced Shadow Denoising via Pixel Masking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Ray tracing techniques for rendering complex scenes with multiple light sources and shadows often result in visual artifacts like bleeding, blurriness, and reduced frame rates, compromising the user experience due to increased computing processing time.
Innovation Solution
A denoising algorithm that applies a pixel mask, generates a penumbra mask, adjusts HitT values, and reduces scene noise using a shadow scene processor, improving the rendering of shadows and maintaining frame rates by reducing visual artifacts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If the number of rays traced is increased to achieve high visual quality, then the rendering quality improves, but the computing processing time increases and frame rate decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the shadow rendering process into distinct components: depth buffer generation, shadow mask creation, and denoising operations. By dividing the rendering pipeline into separate processing stages that can be executed independently and in parallel, the system achieves high-quality shadow rendering without proportionally increasing overall processing time, thus maintaining frame rate while improving rendering quality.
2Manufacturing precision
If the number of rays traced is increased to reduce visual artifacts, then the shadow quality improves, but the computing processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-computing depth buffers and shadow masks before the final rendering pass. These pre-computed data structures capture shadow information with high accuracy, allowing the final rendering to reuse this data without requiring additional ray tracing computations, thereby improving shadow quality while minimizing additional processing time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces intermediary data structures (depth buffers, shadow masks, and denoised shadow buffers) that mediate between the ray tracing process and the final rendering. These intermediaries store and transfer shadow information efficiently, reducing the need for repeated complex computations and thereby reducing computing processing time while maintaining high shadow quality.
3Manufacturing precision
If complex lighted scenes are rendered with high ray count, then the visual quality improves, but the frame rate falls below target value
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complex lighting and shadow rendering into modular components that can be processed independently. By separating shadow mask generation, depth buffer computation, and denoising into distinct processing stages, the system can optimize each stage individually and execute them in parallel, achieving high visual quality in complex lighted scenes while maintaining target frame rates.
Data Source
AI summary
The disclosure presents a technique for utilizing ray tracing to produce high quality visual scenes with shadows while minimizing computing costs. The disclosed technique can lower the number of rays needed for shadow region rendering and still maintain a targeted visual quality for the scene. In one example, a method for denoising a ray traced scene is disclosed that includes: (1) applying a pixel mask to a data structure of data from the scene, wherein the applying uses the scene at full resolution and pixels at the edge of a depth boundary change are identified using the pixel mask, (2) generating a penumbra mask using the data structure, (3) adjusting HitT values in the packed data buffer utilizing the penumbra mask, and (4) denoising the scene by reducing scene noise in the data of the data structure with adjusted HitT values.