Exploring photorealistic rendering for mixed reality on mobile devices

• Main Authors: Esguerra, Christian Terrence B., Ruiz, Conrado, Jr.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Photo-realism; Computer graphics; Rendering (Computer graphics); Photography—Lighting; Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/6334
• Institution: De La Salle University

This work investigates the possibility of photorealistic rendering of virtual objects for mixed reality applications on mobile devices. Photorealistic rendering refers to the process of seamlessly merging virtual objects into real-word scenes. Most systems implemented for this purpose require complex setups, heavy user input, and powerful hardware. Furthermore, very few of these systems have considered implementation for mobile devices especially through global illumination as mobile devices present limited computational power compared to modern desktop machines. The developed system renders virtual objects onto real scenes using physically based rendering approaches and global illumination in the form of path tracing. These rendering approaches were then evaluated in terms of photorealistic quality in the form of qualitative survey and performance through performance testing on mobile device that employs physically based rendering and global illumination and that there are indeed better rendering approaches that produce better photorealistic quality than others. This work also shows that photorealistic rendering of mixed reality can be implemented on limited mobile device hardware using the unity engine and its standard and computer shaders.