Hardware accelerated computer graphics algorithms

The advent of shaders in the latest generations of graphics hardware, which has made consumer level graphics hardware partially programmable, makes now an ideal time to investigate new graphical techniques and algorithms as well as attempting to improve upon existing ones. This work looks at areas of current interest within the graphics community such as Texture Filtering, Bump Mapping and Depth of Field simulation. These are all areas which have enjoyed much interest over the history of computer graphics but which provide a great deal of scope for further investigation in the light of recent hardware advances. A new hardware implementation of a texture filtering technique, aimed at consumer level hardware, is presented. This novel technique utilises Fourier space image filtering to reduce aliasing. Investigation shows that the technique provides reduced levels of aliasing along with comparable levels of detail to currently popular techniques. This adds to the community's knowledge by expanding the range of techniques available, as well as increasing the number of techniques which offer the potential for easy integration with current consumer level graphics hardware along with real-time performance. Bump mapping is a long-standing and well understood technique. Variations and Daniel Rhodes extensions of it have been popular in real-time 3D computer graphics for many years. A new hardware implementation of a technique termed Super Bump Mapping (SBM) is introduced. Expanding on the work of Cant and Langensiepen [1], the SBM technique adopts the novel approach of using normal maps which supply multiple vectors per texel. This allows the retention of much more detail and overcomes some of the aliasing deficiencies of standard bump mapping caused by the standard single vector approach and the non-linearity of the bump mapping process. A novel depth of field algorithm is proposed, which is an extension of the authors previous work [2] [3] [4]. The technique is aimed at consumer level hardware and attempts to raise the bar for realism by providing support for the "see-through" effect. This effect is a vital factor in the realistic appearance of simulated depth of field and has been overlooked in real time computer graphics due to the complexities of an accurate calculation. The implementation of this new algorithm on current consumer level hardware is investigated and it is concluded that while current hardware is not yet capable enough, future iterations will provide the necessary functional and performance increases.