The Visual Computer
December 2019 , Volume 35, Issue 12, pp 1827–1840 | Cite as
An asynchronous method for cloud-based rendering
Keith Bugeja
Kurt Debattista
Sandro Spina
First Online: 16 July 2018
Interactive high-fidelity rendering is still unachievable on many consumer devices. Cloud gaming services have shown promise in delivering interactive graphics beyond the individual capabilities of user devices. However, a number of shortcomings are manifest in these systems: high network bandwidths are required for higher resolutions and input lag due to network fluctuations heavily disrupts user experience. In this paper, we present a scalable solution for interactive high-fidelity graphics based on a distributed rendering pipeline where direct lighting is computed on the client device and indirect lighting in the cloud. The client device keeps a local cache for indirect lighting which is asynchronously updated using an object space representation; this allows us to achieve interactive rates that are unconstrained by network performance for a wide range of display resolutions that are also robust to input lag. Furthermore, in multi-user environments, the computation of indirect lighting is amortised over participating clients.
Rendering Rasterisation Global illumination Distributed algorithms Cloud computing
The online version of this article ( https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-018-1577-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
1.Department of Computer ScienceUniversity of MaltaMsidaMalta
2.WMGUniversity of WarwickCoventryUK
Bugeja, K., Debattista, K. & Spina, S. Vis Comput (2019) 35: 1827. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-018-1577-8
First Online 16 July 2018
Publisher Name Springer Berlin Heidelberg