N-Buffers for efficient depth map query
We introduce the N-buffer as a tool for multiresolution depth map
representation. This neighborhood buffer encodes the value
and position of local depth extrema at different scales in an image
cube, in contrast to the image pyramid. The resulting increase in
storage space is largely compensated by the following benefits:
objects of any size can be culled in constant time against an
occlusion map using four depth lookups; visibility-like queries can
be performed in vertex and fragment programs; N-buffers can be
computed very efficiently with graphics hardware. We present three
applications of this datastructure, and in particular a novel
approach for shadow volume acceleration.
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BibTex references
@Article\{Dec05, author = "D\'ecoret, Xavier", title = "N-Buffers for efficient depth map query", journal = "Computer Graphics Forum", number = "3", volume = "24", year = "2005", keywords = "Visibility, Occlusion Query, H", url = "http://artis.inrialpes.fr/Publications/2005/Dec05" }