Light Field Techniques for Reflections and Refractions

Wolfgang Heidrich, Hendrik P. A. Lensch, Michael F. Cohen, Hans-Peter Seidel

Abstract: Reflections and refractions are important visual effects that have long been considered too costly for interactive applications. Although most contemporary graphics hardware supports reflections off curved surfaces in the form of environment maps, refractions in thick, solid objects cannot be handled with this approach, and the simplifying assumptions of environment maps also produce visible artifacts for reflections.