Resumen de Accurate interactive specular reflections and refractions on curved objects

Pau Estalella Fernández

• Computer graphics have become an important and useful tool for many different tasks, Special effects for the movie industry, as well as video games, rely more and more on sophisticated techniques for synthetic imaging, and photorealistic images can now be computed and mixed with photographs.

  The aim of this thesis is to improve the computation techniques of specular reflections and refractions. Depending on the application, the computational requirements of these reflections are very significant; either the \emph{accuracy}, the \emph{speed} or both factors severely restrict the use of reflections on curved objects in most real-time applications.

  The first contribution is the design and implementation of two new algorithms for computing specular reflections that work on a general purpose CPU and are efficient enough to show, at interactive frame rates, dynamic scenes of moderate complexity.

  The second contribution of this thesis is the design and implementation of another algorithm for computing specular reflections suitable for implementation on off-the-shelf graphics cards. Computer graphics cards have experienced and impressive boost in performance during the last few years. Thus, an algorithm that runs on modern GPUs would benefit from the large speed increases each new generation of GPUs brings.

  The third contribution of this thesis is the design and implementation of a new algorithm for computing refractions suitable for implementation on off-the-shelf graphics cards. Refractions are an integral part of the interaction of light with specular surfaces. They are as well an important visual cue in synthetic images.