Virtual Photogrammetry Light Field Reconstruction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for creating and manipulating 3D models from virtual environments, such as video games, are limited in their ability to efficiently capture and reconstruct scenes from multiple perspectives, leading to incomplete or low-quality reconstructions.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of virtual photogrammetry techniques that capture snapshots within a virtual world, construct point clouds, and calculate light fields using spherical harmonics to generate a mesh structure, allowing for the reproduction and manipulation of 3D scenes from different viewpoints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If multiple photos are taken from different angles to create a virtual 3D model, then the quality and completeness of the reconstruction is improved, but the time and complexity of capturing and processing the photos increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-calculates and stores light field information using spherical harmonics during the capture phase. This preliminary computation of lighting conditions from multiple angles allows the reconstruction process to proceed faster, as the complex lighting calculations have already been performed and stored for later use during model generation.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention captures and stores light field data as a copy of the optical information from the virtual environment. By creating this intermediate light field representation, the system avoids having to perform computationally intensive ray-tracing or radiosity calculations during reconstruction, thereby reducing processing time while maintaining high reconstruction quality.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a virtual camera is used to capture screenshots in a virtual world, then the ability to create 3D models from virtual environments is enabled, but the accuracy and realism of the reconstruction compared to real-world photogrammetry deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The light field representation acts as an intermediary between the virtual camera screenshots and the final 3D reconstruction. By introducing this intermediate layer that explicitly models lighting conditions using spherical harmonics, the system bridges the gap between simplified virtual camera captures and realistic 3D reconstructions, enabling accurate lighting and shadow effects to be preserved even when using virtual cameras.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transforms the capture process by changing parameters from simple color values to include light field information represented by spherical harmonics coefficients. This parameter enrichment allows the virtual camera system to capture sufficient information for high-quality reconstruction, improving accuracy while maintaining versatility across different virtual environments.
Data Source
AI summary
Multiple snapshots of a scene are captured within an executing application (e.g., a video game). When each snapshot is captured, associated color values per pixel and a distance or depth value z per pixel are stored. The depth information from the snapshots is accessed, and a point cloud representing the depth information is constructed. A mesh structure is constructed from the point cloud. The light field(s) on the surface(s) of the mesh structure are calculated. A surface light field is represented as a texture. A renderer uses the surface light field with geometry information to reproduce the scene captured in the snapshots. The reproduced scene can be manipulated and viewed from different perspectives.