Dynamic radiosity shadows for interactive virtual environments

Current state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) systems provide realistic illumination only for static scenes, since shadows are calculated off-line and cannot be updated at interactive rates. This paper presents a new method for incorporating realistic radiosity shadows also in interactive VR applications. A radiosity process and the VR rendering process are coupled. User interactions trigger the radiosity process, which updates the illumination by providing corrected vertex colors. To speed up radiosity updates, coherences are exploited. Thus, on-line updated radiosity shadows can be integrated into interactive, dynamic virtual environments, providing a high degree of visual realism. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.