Fast Ray Tracing Of Implicit Surfaces

Andrei Sherstyuk
School of Computer Science and Software Engineering
Monash University

Abstract:

A ray-tracing algorithm is described for rendering implicit surfaces formed with $C^1$-continuous bounded functions $f(x,y,z)$. This class of functions includes such popular implicit models as blobby molecules, metaballs, soft objects and convolution surfaces. The algorithm employs analytical methods only, which makes it fast, robust, and numerically stable.

Here are some images from the paper:

Blobbified sphereflakes made of 10, 90, 820 and 7381 Blinns's blobs.

Time-profiling charts for Kalra and Barr (left) algorithm and our algorithm (right). Lighter areas consumed more rendering time.