Nvidia Corporation

Joseph E Demers

Stephen Donald Lew

Rui Bastos

Curtis A Beeson

A method for rendering a shadow in a 3 D scene includes generating a penumbra map using a z-buffer and generating an occluder map using the z-buffer. The penumbra map and the occluder map are projected into a 3 D scene to render at least one shadow having a penumbra region and an umbra region.

Method and system for implementing real time soft shadows using penumbra maps and occluder maps

A graphical processing unit (GPU) and methods for rendering a three-dimensional (3D) scene generated in a field of view having in-focus and out-of-focus regions on a two-dimensional (2D) screen region of pixels are described. One method includes initially rendering the scene to create color and depth texture maps and creating mip-map layers for the color texture map. The method further comprises subsequently rendering the scene by, for each pixel: creating a mip-map layer selection value as a function of a depth of the pixel from the depth texture map, generating a color value by interpolation using color values from at least one of the mip-map layers chosen according to the mip-map layer selection value, and setting a color of the pixel to the generated color texture.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Joseph E Demers