Accelerated Radiosity Method for Complex Environments

Abstract

As form-factor calculation costs about 90% of the computing time when applying radiosity approach for realistic image synthesis, it is of great significance to reduce the required computation, An accelerated radiosity algorithm for general complex environments, based on environment localization and the directional form-factor concept, is presented in this paper. First we subdivide the object space into many regions. Objects contained in each region are adjacent to each other and pose more illumination effects to their neighbours. Then form-factors are calculated in each local environment,. The radiant light energy transfer between different regions is evaluated at their common boundaries. Directional form-factors are introduced to simulate the interaction of light between local environments and between non-diffuse surfaces. Comparison is made to existing algorithms. Statistic results and theoretical analysis show that the new algorithm is much faster than previous ones. The technique is especially fit for interactive design and animation sequence since modification to the shape or location of objects usually happens in local environments.