CoSMo: Intent-based composition of shader modules

• Published in: 2014 International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (GRAPP) pp. 1 - 11
• Main Authors: Haaser, Georg, Steinlechner, Harald, May, Michael, Schwarzler, Michael, Maierhofer, Stefan, Tobler, Robert
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: SCITEPRESS 01.01.2014
• Subjects: Composition; Embedded; Language; Lighting; Pipelines; Programming; Rendering; Rendering (computer graphics); Semantics; Shader; Surface treatment; Synthesizers

We propose a novel shader programming model which operates on intent-oriented shader modules instead of specific programs for dedicated GPU rasterization pipeline stages. In constrast to existing pipeline shader frameworks, our system exposes a radically simplified pipeline, which we purposefully aligned with our basic intuition of shaders as per-primitive and per-pixel operations and compositions thereof. This simplicity lends itself to structure modules purely based on their intent, instead of dealing with structure enforced by specific versions of graphics APIs. Consequently, this offers great flexibility when it comes to reusing and combining modules with completely different semantics, or when targeting different graphics APIs. The simplicity and uniformity of our system also motivates automatic parameterization and simplification of shader programs as well as interesting interactive shader development and management techniques.