Viewpoint-Based Ambient Occlusion

Ambient occlusion is a powerful technique that mimics indirect global illumination at a fraction of the cost. In this paper, we introduce a new ambient occlusion technique based on information-theoretic concepts. A viewpoint quality measure is first defined using the concept of mutual information of the channel formed between a set of viewpoints and the polygons of an object. By reversing this channel we can speak of the mutual information of a polygon with respect to all viewpoints. From this polygonal information, we represent a kind of ambient occlusion which can be used to guide the viewpoint selection by preferring the most informative views of the object. The polygonal information is dependent on the importance assigned to each viewpoint and helps us to enhance features such as the most salient parts. Further, the assignation of color to each viewpoint combined with the polygonal information produces a nice visualization of the object. Examples are given with coloroid palettes a...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: CGA
• Authors: Francisco González, Mateu Sbert, Miquel Feixas
• Keywords: Ambient Occlusion, CGA 2008, Computational Geometry, Polygonal Information, Viewpoint