Triangle Order Optimization for Graphics Hardware Computation Culling

Speaker:	Dr. Pedro V. SANDER
		Department of Computer Science and Engineering
		Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

Title:		"Triangle Order Optimization for Graphics Hardware
		 Computation Culling"

Date:		Monday, 4 December 2006

Time:		4:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:		Lecture Theatre F
		(Leung Yat Sing Lecture Theatre, near lift nos. 25/26)
		HKUST

Abstract:

In computer graphics, 3D models are generally composed of thousands of
small triangles. When rendering a 3D model, the order in which these
triangles are emitted to the graphics processor significantly impacts
rendering time. In this talk I will give a brief overview of the graphics
rendering pipeline, pinpoint the opportunities for culling rendering
computation by manipulating triangle orderings, and describe new methods
we are developing in order to generate triangle orders that reduce the
time it takes to render the model.

First, we show that the triangle order affects the amount of computation
performed in both the vertex and the pixel processing stages. While
methods found in literature concentrate only on the former, our novel
methods optimize for both vertex and pixel computation culling. More
specifically, I will describe our recently published algorithm that
reduces pixel processing without significantly sacrificing the state of
the art vertex processing gains. Then, I will present a currently ongoing
project that is able to re-optimize the triangle order interactively at
runtime for both vertex and pixel computation culling. This new
optimization algorithm is orders of magnitude faster than previous
methods.


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Biography:

Pedro V. Sander attended college at Stony Brook University, in New York,
USA, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. He then
attended graduate school at Harvard University, in Cambridge, USA, where
he received Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in 1999 and
2003, respectively. While attending graduate school at Harvard, he was a
Microsoft Research fellow from 2000-2002. Most of his research during
graduate school focused on geometry processing, more specifically on mesh
parametrization. After graduating in 2003, Dr. Sander was a senior member
of the Application Research Group of ATI Research, where he conducted
real-time rendering research with latest generation and upcoming graphics
hardware. In August 2006, he moved to Hong Kong to join the Faculty of
Computer Science and Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology.