Projects I've been involved in...

Real Time Global Illumination Using Temporal Coherence

2009-07-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

It's done!!! I've finished my master thesis!!! :)

Here's a video about the results of my work:

Realtime Global Illumination using Temporal Coherence

2009-04-04T08:30:00.001-07:00

I'm currently working on my master thesis which performs global illumination in realtime. The thesis is based on the "Imperfect Shadowmap" approach. I also use temporal coherence to reuse as much information as possible from the previous frame. The work is not finished yet, but here's a video with the first results. It was captured on an Intel i7 CPU system with 6GB RAM and two GTX295 graphic cards running in SLI mode. With 3 light bounces the application runs at 60fps.

Main Features:

No preprocessing necessary
Fully dynamic scenes and lighting
Multiple Lightbounces
Fast through exploiting temporal coherence

Gruppenzwang - Realtime Graphics Demo

2008-08-31T00:55:00.000-07:00

In the realtime rendering labratory course my brother Wolfgang and I developed the graphics demo called 'Gruppenzwang'. The fun part was, that we could implement whatever effects we wanted and I'm quite proud of the result and this list:

Shadowmaps with softshadows
Screen spaced ambient occlusion
Parallax Occlusion Mapping
Swarm simulation
Splinemeshes
Pixelperfect spheres (with raycasting)
Volume renderer
Microscope effect
Normalmapping microscope effect
Motionblur
Flow simulation
Dynamic cubemap environment mapping
Screen distortion

In opposite to the other projects presented on this site, we developed a new rendering framework that was the underlying basis for the demo. It has a better object oriented design and is more flexible than the previous one. We used DirectX9 for rendering and the Fragmentlinker to compose the final material shaders. For example raycasting (for the spheres) combined with three different surface shaders.

>>> Download Demo <<<

Project Members:

Wolfgang Knecht
Martin Knecht

Architectural Visualization

2008-04-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

Some shots of architectural visualization I did with my brother Wolfgang.

Fractals

2007-12-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

For the Fractals labratory course I developed two small applications. Both were set up on the Engine from the Jungle Rumble game.

Strange Attractors

This program displays the Lorenz or Roessler attractor. You can download it here.

DLA - Diffusion Limited Aggregation

This small application displays the DLA algorithm on a 3D grid. The spheres are rendered using billboards to enable fast rendering. You can download it here.

Softshadows

2007-06-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

In this project we tested an idea to create smooth soft shadows for tube like lights. The basic outline of the algorithm is as followed:

Render a shadowmap from the leftmost and rightmost point of the tube light
Compare both and use hardware occlusion queries to check if there is to much difference
If theres to much difference, generate in the middle of those a new shadowmap

The algorithm recursively generates shadowmaps (the next one is between left/middle and middle/right) according to an error threshold. To get better results the shadowmaps are projected back to camera view so that the real visible difference is taken into account.
This application was developted on top of the Jungle Rumble Engine. You can download a demo here.

Project Members:

Michael Schwärzler: Programming
Martin Knecht: Programming

Flow Visualization

2007-02-01T12:41:00.000-08:00

In the labratory course Visualization we had to develope two projects: The volume renderer (see topic below) and a program to display flow data sets. You can download it here. There is also a small webpage available that explains the main features. For copyright reasons I'm only allowed to link the website, that provides the volume data sets.

Project Members:

Michael Schwärzler
Martin Knecht

Volume Renderer

2007-02-01T12:16:00.000-08:00

For another labratory course at the Vienna University of Technology we developed a volume renderer. It takes volume data from a CT and displays it using different algorithms. The rendering happens entirely on the GPU and is therefore pretty fast. You can download the application here. For copyright reasons I'm only allowed to link the website, that provides the volume data sets. There is also a webpage available that explains the main features.

Project Members:

Michael Schwärzler: Programming
Martin Knecht: Programming

Ageia PhysX integration into Coin3D

2007-01-31T04:19:00.000-08:00

In the labratory course "Virtual and Augmented Reality" we developed a virtual Incredible Machine construction kit. You are able to define some objects and use them to design your own Incredible Machine. Ageia PhysX enabled us to make use of cool physical effects.

The application is based on the studierstube which uses the coin3d (open source implementation of the open inventor api) rendering engine.

Since we did not need every feature of PhysX and time was running out, the implementation is not complete. Although here is a small package with some sourcefiles and a description included.

Project Members:

Anita Stritzelberger: Modelling & VR setup
Felix Marchtrenker: Modelling & VR setup
Michael Schwaerzler: Programming & VR setup
Martin Knecht: PhysX integration & VR setup

Beamtrees

2006-07-08T03:52:00.000-07:00

Beamtree is a small project done for the information visualization labratory course. Based on the paper "Beamtrees: Compact Visualization of Large Hierarchies" from Frank van Ham and J. van Wijk. Beamtrees are an enhancement of the well known Treemaps.

Our program is capable of displaying parts of a filesystem as a Beamtree.

The application is build on top of the Jungle Rumble 3D engine which lead to a very short development time.
We used the ray-cylinder intersection algorithm presented at www.geometrictools.com.

Project Members:

Michael Schwaerzler: Programming
Martin Knecht: Programming

Game: Jungle Rumble

2006-06-29T02:06:00.000-07:00

The game Jungle Rumble is a clone of the Wuermer game. It was developed for the Gametools Project, which goal is to serve the european game industry with a leading edge 3D graphics library. Jungle Rumble should therefore demonstrate some effects in a real game environment.

Although it seems to be quite equal to Wuermer it's a total rewrite. We designed a 3D engine and build Jungle Rumble on top of it. For graphics output we used Direct3D. For physical support we integrated the Ageia PhysX engine.

You can control the nutshell by W, A, S, D and shoot by pressing the left mouse button. Choose your favourite weapon by pressing 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5!

The game shows two effects developed by GTP:

An approximate raytrace effect which allows us to render objects with reflection and refraction in realtime

Conventional Environment map

GTP Raytrace Effects

Depth imposters: They are used to omit artefacts when a particle intersects with other geometry.

Conventional Decal imposters

GTP Depth imposters

Technical Information:

Written in C++
Direct3D for graphics output
FMOD for some sound
PhysX from Ageia is used for everything that belongs to motion
Customizeable particlesystem similar to that from Cinema4D
Deformable Terrain
Materialsystem
Resourcemanagementsystem

Project Members:

Martin Knecht: Design & Programming
Michael Schwaerzler: Design & Programming
Jakob Karaszek: Design & Art
Markus Giegl: Gametools supervisor

zwischen Welten

2006-04-03T03:41:00.000-07:00

In the labratory course "Multimedia I Productions" we had to make a film about the topic [an]other love story. Our contribution had the name "zwischen Welten". Hope you like it!

Project members:

Pia Wender: Actress
Andreas Bonner: Actor
Elvis: The dog
Anja Konlechner: Music
Martina Berlinger: Script, Director and Cut
Lea Zalto: Script, Director and Cut
Wolfgang Knecht: Script, Director and Cut
Martin Knecht: Script, Director and Cut

Game: Wuermer

2005-01-31T03:41:00.000-08:00

The game Wuermer was programmed in about 4 month for the Computergraphics 2 laboratory course at the Technical University of Vienna. It's a small game where you are a worm, riding in a nutshell, trying to shoot your oponent.
It made along with the game The Wacky Professor the first place.

You can control the nutshell by W, A, S, D and shoot by pressing the left mouse button. Choose your favourite weapon by pressing 1, 2 or 3!

Technical Information:

Written in C++
OpenGL for graphics output
GLUT Library
FMOD for some sound
ColDet for collision detection
Customizeable particlesystem similar to that from Cinema4D
Deformable Terrain
Materialsystem
Resourcemanagementsystem

Project Members:

Martin Knecht: Programming & Modeldesign
Michael Schwaerzler: Programming & Leveldesign
Wolfgang Knecht: Modeldesign