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Generating antialiased images at low sampling densities

Published:01 August 1987Publication History
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Abstract

Ray tracing produces point samples of an image from a 3-D model. Constructing an antialiased digital picture from point samples is difficult without resorting to extremely high sampling densities. This paper describes a program that focuses on that problem. While it is impossible to eliminate aliasing totally, it has been shown that nonuniform sampling yields aliasing that is less conspicuous to the observer. An algorithm is presented for fast generation of nonuniform sampling patterns that are optimal in some sense. Some regions of an image may require extra sampling to avoid strong aliasing. Deciding where to do extra sampling can be guided by knowledge of how the eye perceives noise as a function of contrast and color. Finally, to generate the digital picture, the image must be reconstructed from the samples and resampled at the display pixel rate. The nonuniformity of the samples complicates this process, and a new nonuniform reconstruction filter is presented which solves this problem efficiently.

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            cover image ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics
            ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics  Volume 21, Issue 4
            July 1987
            299 pages
            ISSN:0097-8930
            DOI:10.1145/37402
            Issue’s Table of Contents
            • cover image ACM Conferences
              SIGGRAPH '87: Proceedings of the 14th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques
              August 1987
              352 pages
              ISBN:0897912276
              DOI:10.1145/37401

            Copyright © 1987 ACM

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            • Published: 1 August 1987

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