Eikonal Rendering: Efficient Light Transport in Refractive Objects
We present a new method for real-time rendering of sophisticated lighting effects in and around refractive objects. It enables us to realistically display refractive objects with complex material properties, such as arbitrarily varying refraction index, inhomogeneous attenuation, as well as spatially-varying anisotropic scattering and reflectance properties. User-controlled changes of lighting positions only require a few seconds of update time. Our method is based on a set of ordinary differential equations derived from the eikonal equation, the main postulate of geometric optics. This set of equations allows for fast casting of bent light rays with the complexity of a particle tracer. Based on this concept, we also propose an efficient light propagation technique using adaptive wavefront tracing. Efficient GPU implementations for our algorithmic concepts enable us to render visual effects that were previously not reproducible in this combination in real-time.
Projects

Volume Stylizer: Tomography-based Volume Painting
I3D 2013
Abstract
Volumetric phenomena are an integral part of standard
rendering, yet, no suitable tools to edit characteristic
properties are available so far. Either simulation results
are used directly, or modifications are high-level, e.g.,
noise functions to influence appearance. Intuitive artistic
control is not possible.
We propose a solution to stylize single-scattering
volumetric effects. Emission, scattering and extinction
become amenable to artistic control while preserving a
smooth and coherent appearance when changing the
viewpoint. Our approach lets the user define a number of
target views to be matched when observing the volume from
this perspective. Via an analysis of the volumetric
rendering equation, we can show how to link this problem to
tomographic reconstruction.
Video Slides Bibtex
@inproceedings{Klehm:13,
author = {Oliver Klehm and Ivo Ihrke and Hans-Peter Seidel and Elmar Eisemann},
title = {Volume Stylizer: Tomography-based Volume Painting},
booktitle = {Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (i3D'13)},
year = 2013,
pages = {xx--yy},
}
author = {Oliver Klehm and Ivo Ihrke and Hans-Peter Seidel and Elmar Eisemann},
title = {Volume Stylizer: Tomography-based Volume Painting},
booktitle = {Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (i3D'13)},
year = 2013,
pages = {xx--yy},
}