IP Library › Granted Patent US 10,008,034
Granted Patent B2
US 10,008,034 · App. 14/058,132 · Granted Jun 26, 2018

System, method, and computer program product for computing indirect lighting in a cloud network

Inventors: Morgan McGuire (Williamstown, MA); Cyril Jean-Francois Crassin (Paris, FR); David Patrick Luebke (Charlottesville, VA); Michael Thomas Mara (Williamstown, MA); Brent L. Oster (San Jose, CA); Peter Schuyler Shirley (Salt Lake City, UT); Peter-Pike J. Sloan (Sammamish, WA); Christopher Ryan Wyman (Redmond, WA)
Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
G06T15/55A63F13/355G06T15/005
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 10,008,034
App. No.
14/058,132
Granted
Jun 26, 2018
Kind
B2
Abstract

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for computing indirect lighting in a cloud network. In operation, one or more scenes for rendering are identified. Further, indirect lighting associated with the one or more scenes is identified. Additionally, computation associated with the indirect lighting is performed in a cloud network utilizing at least one of a voxel-based algorithm, a photon-based algorithm, or an irradiance-map-based algorithm.

Claims (24)

1. A method, including:

identifying at a cloud network including a server computer one or more scenes to be rendered at a client device;

identifying at the server computer of the cloud network indirect lighting associated with the one or more scenes; and

performing at the server computer of the cloud network a computation of the indirect lighting utilizing

voxels representing indirect irradiance for the one or more scenes as a directionally varying, low-dimensional quantity in a sparse hierarchical spatial partition; and

sending data associated with the computation from the server computer of the cloud network to the client device to be used for rendering at the client device, including streaming the voxels to the client device for decoding thereof and use in rendering the one or more scenes.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data associated with the computation is shared between two or more client devices that include the client device to which the data associated with the computation is sent.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing the computation of the indirect lighting associated with the one or more scenes includes performing the computation asynchronously.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing amortization of the indirect lighting over multiple client devices.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sparse hierarchical spatial partition is a sparse octree.

6. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform steps comprising:

identifying at a cloud network including a server computer one or more scenes to be rendered at a client device;

identifying at the server computer of the cloud network indirect lighting associated with the one or more scenes; and

performing at the server computer of the cloud network a computation of the indirect lighting utilizing

voxels representing indirect irradiance for the one or more scenes as a directionally varying, low-dimensional quantity in a sparse hierarchical spatial partition; and

sending data associated with the computation from the server computer of the cloud network to the client device to be used for rendering at the client device, including streaming the voxels to the client device for decoding thereof and use in rendering the one or more scenes.

7. A server computer in a cloud network comprising:

a memory system; and

one or more processing cores coupled to the memory system and that are each configured for:

identifying one or more scenes to be rendered at a client device;

identifying indirect lighting associated with the one or more scenes; and

performing a computation of the indirect lighting utilizing

voxels representing indirect irradiance for the one or more scenes as a directionally varying, low-dimensional quantity in a sparse hierarchical spatial partition; and

sending data associated with the computation to the client device to be used for rendering at the client device, including streaming the voxels to the client device for decoding thereof and use in rendering the one or more scenes.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Dec 24, 2014
From: MCGUIRE, MORGAN; CRASSIN, CYRIL JEAN-FRANCOIS; LUEBKE, DAVID PATRICK; MARA, MICHAEL THOMAS; OSTER, BRENT L.; SHIRLEY, PETER SCHUYLER; SLOAN, PETER-PIKE J.; WYMAN, CHRISTOPHER RYAN
To: NVIDIA CORPORATION
Reel/Frame 034584/0569 →
Continuity (2)
Provisional Application 61819330 · May 3, 2013
Related Publication 20140327690A1 · Nov 6, 2014
Cited By (1)
US 12,614,345