Interactive Rendering with Real-World Illumination

Abstract

We propose solutions for seamlessly integrating synthetic objects into background photographs at interactive rates. Recently developed image-based methods are used to capture real-world illumination, and sphere-mapping is used illuminate and render the synthetic objects. We present a new procedure for approximating shadows cast by the real-world illumination using standard hardware-based shadow mapping, and a novel image composition algorithm that uses frame-buffer hardware to correctly overlay the synthetic objects and their shadows onto the background image. We show results of an OpenGL implementation of the algorithm that is capable of rendering complex synthetic objects and their shadows at rates of up to 10 frames per second on an SGI Onyx2.