Stochastic Depth Buffer Compression using Generalized Plane Encoding

• Published in: Computer graphics forum Vol. 32; no. 2pt1; pp. 103 - 112
• Main Authors: Andersson, M., Munkberg, J., Akenine-Möller, T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2013
• Subjects: Algorithms; Analysis; and texture; Buffers; Compressing; Compressors; Computer and Information Science; Computer graphics; Computer Science; Data- och informationsvetenskap (Datateknik); Datavetenskap (datalogi); E.4 [Coding and Information Theory]: Data compaction and compression; Hardware; I.3.1 [Computer Graphics]: Hardware Architecture-Graphics processors; I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism-Color; I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three‐Dimensional Graphics and Realism—Color, shading, shadowing, and texture; Image processing systems; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Natural Sciences; Naturvetenskap; Representations; shading; shadowing; Studies; Triangles
• ISSN: 0167-7055; 1467-8659; 1467-8659
• DOI: 10.1111/cgf.12030

In this paper, we derive compact representations of the depth function for a triangle undergoing motion or defocus blur. Unlike a static primitive, where the depth function is planar, the depth function is a rational function in time and the lens parameters. Furthermore, we show how these compact depth functions can be used to design an efficient depth buffer compressor/decompressor, which significantly lowers total depth buffer bandwidth usage for a range of test scenes. In addition, our compressor/decompressor is simpler in the number of operations needed to execute, which makes our algorithm more amenable for hardware implementation than previous methods.