Rendering
Interactive Raytracing
Michelangelo's David; a large-scale seismic volume; the moons of Jupiter; four half-full wine glasses; the Greek Parthenon. What do these models have in common? They were all part of the Star-Ray demonstration at SIGGRAPH 2002, held in San Antonio, July 22-24. With support from SGI, researchers from SCI, GDC, VisSim, and the Graphics group designed, implemented, and premiered interactive ray-tracing of a complex virtual underwater world for thousands of graphics enthusiasts at the world's premier computer graphics conference.
Iris Rendering
Human irises gain their appearance from a layered and highly complex structure that is difficult to model and render with conventional techniques. We present an approach that uses domain knowledge from the field of ocular prosthetics. In that field, ocularists create an artificial iris by painting many simple semi-transparent layers. We translate this methodology into a simple and effective toolkit which can be used to create and render realistic looking irises.
Kalabsha Temple
The ancient Egyptian temple of Kalabsha dates back to 30 BC but was moved in 1963 to a new site in order to save it from the rising waters of the Lake Nasser. In the Kalabsha temple project computer graphics researcher worked in collaboration with Egyptologists makes it possible to recreate the temple, place it back to its original location and orientation, and illuminate it, as it may have appeared some 2000 years ago. Accurate light simulation is of highest importance in archaeological reconstructions when you want to investigate how a site might have looked like in the past. This can be used as a useful tool for Egyptologists to test for changes in perception. Radiance lighting vizualisation and rendering system was used to ensure a high fidelity result. The Kalabsha model can be downloaded under resources.
