A master thesis from Aalborg University
The Perceptual Influence of Approximating Ambient Occlusion in Real-Time Rendering
[Den Perceptuelle Indflydelse af at Tilnærme Omgivende Okklusion i Real-Time Rendering]
Author(s)
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2010
Submitted on
2010-05-27
Pages
103 pages
Abstract
This thesis describes a psychophysical experiment carried out to assess the perceptual influence of approximating ambient occlusion in real-time rendering. Three different screen-space ambient occlusion techniques of differing physical accuracy were implemented for the experiment. The results of the experiment show that screen-space ambient occlusion can increase the perceived realism of visually complex synthetic images. Visual complexity was also found to have an influence on the required physical accuracy of the ambient occlusion algorithm. Specifically, as the visual complexity increases, the required physical accuracy of ambient occlusion decreases. In a visually complex, ecologically valid scenario, experiment participants were not able to discern a difference between two different screen-space ambient occlusion techniques with significant observable quality differences. The results of the experiment suggest that in practical application scenarios such as computer games, it is prudent to investigate the need for, and impact of, screen-space ambient occlusion for individual scenes or environments. In many cases, low accuracy ambient occlusion can be sufficient, and in some cases it can be turned off completely; thus allowing for more computation time to be utilized on other perceptually important rendering tasks.
Keywords
Documents
Colophon: This page is part of the AAU Student Projects portal, which is run by Aalborg University. Here, you can find and download publicly available bachelor's theses and master's projects from across the university dating from 2008 onwards. Student projects from before 2008 are available in printed form at Aalborg University Library.
If you have any questions about AAU Student Projects or the research registration, dissemination and analysis at Aalborg University, please feel free to contact the VBN team. You can also find more information in the AAU Student Projects FAQs.