Hardware-accelerated gradient noise for graphics

A synthetic noise function is a key component of most computer graphics rendering systems. This pseudo-random noise function is used to create a wide variety of natural looking textures that are applied to objects in the scene. To be useful, the generated noise should be repeatable while exhibiting no discernible periodicity, anisotropy, or aliasing. However, noise with these qualities is computationally expensive and results in a significant fraction of the run time for scenes with rich visual complexity. We propose modifications to the standard algorithm for computing synthetic noise that improve the visual quality of the noise, and a parallel hardware implementation of this improved noise function that allows the use of reduced precision arithmetic during the noise computation. The result is a special-purpose function unit for producing synthetic noise that computes high-quality noise values approximately two orders of magnitude faster than software techniques. The circuit, using...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: GLVLSI
• Authors: Josef B. Spjut, Andrew E. Kensler, Erik Brunvand
• Keywords: GLVLSI 2009, Noise Function, Synthetic Noise, Synthetic Noise Function, VLSI