GPU Gems 3

Chapter 18. Relaxed Cone Stepping for Relief Mapping

Fabio Policarpo Perpetual Entertainment

Manuel M. Oliveira Instituto de Informática—UFRGS

Introduction

The presence of geometric details on object surfaces dramatically changes the way light interacts with these surfaces. Although synthesizing realistic pictures requires simulating this interaction as faithfully as possible, explicitly modeling all the small details tends to be impractical. To address these issues, an image-based technique called relief mapping has recently been introduced for adding per-fragment details onto arbitrary polygonal models (Policarpo et al. 2005). The technique has been further extended to render correct silhouettes (Oliveira and Policarpo 2005) and to handle non-height-field ...