Labor für Virtuelles Studio / Virtuelle Realität

Abstract: Ray-LUT: A Lookup-Based Method for Camera Lens Simulation in Real-Time Using Ray Tracing

Lens systems have a major influence on the image due to effects such as depth of field or optical aberrations. The only method to simulate these effects precisely is to trace rays through an actual lens system. This provides accurate results, but only with high computational effort. To speed up the ray tracing through the lens system, various acceleration methods have been developed, requiring considerable precomputations. We present a new method based on the Realistic Camera by Kolb et. al.. Instead of tracing each ray through the lens system, the rays are precomputed once and stored in a lookup table. In contrast to other methods, our method is simple, and does not require substantial preprocessing upfront. We can simulate complex effects such as chromatic aberrations accurately in real-time, regardless the number of lens surfaces in the system. Our method achieves the same performance as state-of-the-art methods like Polynomial Optics, while maintaining the same number of samples per pixel.

Keywords:

Ray Tracing, Camera, Lens Effects, Optical Simulation, Real-Time, Caching, GPU