JPS6314288A - Generating system for voxel information table - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To quickly obtain voxel (unit division space) information by obtaining the voxel to which a three-dimensional object belongs and generating a table to display the object and distributing this processing to unit computers of a computer system to execute it in parallel. CONSTITUTION:Graphic information of the object stored in a storage device 4 is successively sent to all voxels 1 from a computer 2, and object information whose number is given by p=c+ni ((c) is the voxel number, and (n) is the number of voxels, and (i) is 0, 1...) is arranged in each voxel 1, and next, grid information in a space is sent and is stored in each voxel. Information are simultaneously generated in the voxels 1 in parallel, and the voxel to which the object belongs is operated in accordance with position information of the three-dimensional space to generate a 'object voxel' table. The computer 2 designates a voxel to receive the table and registers the object number in the voxel item. These procedures are repeated for respective voxels to complete voxel information, and this information is used for the display processing of the three-dimensional object to quickly perform the processing. Voxel information is simultaneously generated in all voxels in parallel, and voxels are completely independently operated to obtain the considerable effect of the parallel processing because information replacement is unnecessary on the way of the processing.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] The present invention displays a large number of objects as a preliminary step to a ray tracing method that displays realistic pictures including shadows, reflections, and transmission effects from graphic information of three-dimensional objects. In order to solve the problem that it takes a long time to generate the voxel information required when doing so, the voxel to which this object belongs is determined for each 3D object, and the result is used to correspond to the voxel. By creating a table that displays the object, distributing the object information to each unit computer (cell processor) of the computer system that executes this processing in parallel, and later integrating the results. , which allows voxel information to be obtained even faster.

[Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to the display of three-dimensional objects, particularly to a method for generating a voxel information table for the object.

Ray tracing methods, which generate realistic pictures from graphic information of three-dimensional objects, are used when creating movies, commercial films, etc. on computers.

In order to find the intersection point where the trajectory of a ray from one specific point (viewpoint) to an object intersects with the object, the intersection points of every object and the ray are calculated one by one, so constructing an image using these rays would be a huge task. In order to create a moving image that requires a large number of images, it is necessary to create a more complex and elaborate picture, which requires a large amount of calculation, and to generate it at high speed.

In such a case, the three-dimensional space is defined as a cubic unit space with the same side length, that is, a collection of voxels,
If a voxel is used as the information unit, there is no need to check for intersections with all objects when tracing a ray in an object display, and only check for intersections with objects that are within the voxel through which the ray passes. This can significantly reduce the amount of calculation.

[Prior Art] FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of a conventional system for generating voxel information.

In the figure, 5.7 is a storage device, and 6 is an arithmetic device.

The storage device 5 stores graphic information of all objects to be displayed and grid information that divides the three-dimensional space into voxels.

Graphic information is expressed as a table that describes the attributes and parameters of each object, and grid information is a three-dimensional space that is a collection of voxels, and the position of each voxel is expressed using x, y, and z coordinates.

In order to create voxel information from the above information, the arithmetic unit 6 first extracts one object from among all the objects, calculates the position of the object from its parameters, and compares it with the grid information to determine which voxel it intersects with. Find out whether

If there is a voxel that intersects, the number of the object is registered in the item of that voxel in the voxel information.

This process is then repeated for all objects in the three-dimensional space to generate voxel information.

Voxel information is stored in the storage device 7, and expressed as a table in which the numbers of objects included in each voxel are registered for each voxel.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

In conventional voxel information generation methods, for each object,
Since registration was performed on the included voxels, there was a problem in that it took a very long time when the number of objects was extremely large.

To calculate which voxel an object placed in any direction in a 3D space belongs to, comparison calculations using floating points, calculations to solve quadratic equations, transformation matrix calculations, etc. requires complex and time-consuming processing.

Therefore, as the number of objects increases, the rate of increase in the amount of calculation increases cumulatively, and there are even cases where it takes longer than the calculation using the ray tracing method, which is the next step of processing.

[Means for solving problems]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of a computer system according to the present invention.

A cell processor (hereinafter referred to as a cell) 1 is composed of an arithmetic unit necessary for generating voxel information, that is, a microcomputer equipped with a floating point arithmetic unit and a storage capacity capable of storing a sufficient amount of information. Ru.

The host computer 2 is a storage device 4 for storing a large amount of information.
, for example, includes a magnetic disk.

The common bus 3 exchanges data between the host computer 2 and each cell 1.

[Effect]

As shown in the procedure of FIG. 2, graphic information and grid information are stored in the storage device of the computer system described above, and object information is placed in the 11-cell processor.

(2) Each cell processor processes the object for which it is responsible, and generates "object-voxel" data indicating the voxel to which the object belongs.

(3) The host computer collects this data and converts it into data of objects intersecting each voxel to generate "voxel-object" data, that is, voxel information.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the voxel information generation method of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

A host computer 2 shown in FIG. 1 generates graphic information of an object and stores it in a storage device 4, for example, a magnetic disk.

An example of a configuration table of graphic information is shown in FIG.

The graphic information includes three items for one object: an object number, object attributes (types), and parameter values, and is made up of a table for all objects.

An object is an object that has simple attributes that can be expressed with a small number of parameters, such as a sphere, cylinder, cone, rectangular parallelepiped, and rotating body.

Objects with complex shapes are made up of these unit objects (primitives,
(hereinafter referred to as an object).

The parameters are made up of the following two types of numerical groups.

The first is a group of numbers that indicate the size of the object; for example, a sphere has a radius r, a cylinder has a base radius r and a height h,
It is.

The other is a numerical group of parameters indicating the position and orientation of the object, which is expressed as a 4×4 three-dimensional transformation matrix.

That is, for example, for a sphere, S8, (i, j = 1 to 4), the object number is an integer (2 bytes), the attribute is character data (1 byte x number of characters), and the parameter is floating point data (64 bits x (16 + α) )), the data for one object is about 200 bytes.

On the other hand, generating a complex picture requires at least several hundred to several dozen objects.

Therefore, the total amount of graphic data is about 1 megabyte.

In the present invention, this large amount of graphical information is divided and distributed to each cell, and the processing time is reduced by distributing the enormous computational load.

Here, it is defined as follows.

C: Cell number.

n,: number of cells (C=1 to nc).

p: Object number.

n,: number of objects (p=1 to np).

(vX + vV + vZ): Voxel number.

nv: number of voxel coordinates (vX+vy*v
11=1 to nv) n: total number of voxels=nv3 A cell is a microcomputer, and there is a physical limit to its number, and the number of no's is about several tens to several hundreds.

The number np of objects is about one to two orders of magnitude larger than the number nc of cells.

If the number of voxels n is too small, many objects will fit into one voxel and the effect will be small.
Furthermore, if there are too many voxel information, the storage amount of voxel information becomes large, and it takes too much time and effort to trace the rays, resulting in a longer processing time.

In reality, it is desirable that the size of one voxel be about the same as the size of one object, and the number of voxels n should be several thousand to several thousand.
It will be about the same.

Next, the three steps of the embodiment of FIG. 2 for generating voxel information will be described.

In the first stage, the graphic information of the objects stored in the storage device 2 is broadcasted from the host computer 2 to all cells via the common bus 3 in the order of the object numbers.

Cell C takes into its internal memory only the graphic data of the object numbered p=c+nXi (i=0.1., .), and ignores the data for other objects.

If the number of objects, n, is about one order of magnitude larger than the number of cells, n, then by doing this, a large amount of graphic data will be distributed almost equally to each cell 1.

Next, information regarding the grid in the space is transferred to the host computer 2.
, and all cells 1 capture this into their internal memory.

In the second stage, information generation is performed simultaneously in parallel in each cell 1, but each cell 1 only has 3 information for the object it is responsible for.
Calculate which voxel it belongs to from the position information in the dimensional space.

When this stage of processing is completed, each cell has a table in its internal memory that shows which voxel the object belongs to for each object it is responsible for, as shown in Figure 4.
The “Object-Voxel” table is completed.

An example of the third stage of voxel information collection processing is shown below.

The host computer 2 specifies each cell in order according to the cell number, and receives the "object-voxel" list created in the internal memory of the cell.

In the host computer 2, a table format for listing items in order of voxel numbers, that is, a "voxel-object" table format is prepared in advance.

When a voxel number appears in the item of an object in the "Object-Voxel" table taken from cell 1, the number of the object is registered in the item of that voxel in the "Voxel-Object" table.

When the registration of all the objects handled by a certain cell 1 is completed, the next cell is designated and the same process is performed, and this procedure is repeated for all the cells 1.

When this stage is completed, the storage device 4 of the host computer 2 stores a "voxel-object" table indicating which object the voxel contains for each voxel, that is, voxel information, as shown in FIG. is completed.

The voxel information G generated through the above steps is used to speed up processing when executing the ray tracing method, which is the main processing for displaying three-dimensional objects.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, creation of voxel information, which occupies most of the time in generating voxel Ift II, is performed simultaneously and in parallel in all cells, and there is no need to exchange data during processing. The effect of parallel processing is enormous.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram explaining the computer system configuration of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram explaining the voxel information table generation procedure of the present invention, FIG. 3 is an example of a diagram information configuration table, and FIG. Voxel 1 table, FIG. 5 is a "voxel-object" table, and FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of a conventional example. In the figure, 1 is a cell processor, 2 is a host computer, 3 is a common bus, and 4 is a storage device. 4 &S, 1 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 1 If Gun 9 Shiba Pou Jji si Mi Cloth Figure 3 ￥ S 4 Figure 5 Follow] 1! ;zukukokoj-?猜め＼Mi'fu'Q.Noah G
Snake and 1 Figure 6

Claims (1)

[Claims] For a unit division space (voxel) in which a rectangular parallelepiped three-dimensional space containing the entire three-dimensional object is equally divided, an information table of a three-dimensional object whose part or whole is included in the space is generated. In this method, a plurality of cell processors (1) and a host computer (2) are connected via a common bus (3), and the host computer (2) makes each cell processor (1) correspond to a three-dimensional object, and
The three-dimensional object information is transferred to all cell processors (1), and each cell processor (1) generates all voxel information to which the three-dimensional object belongs for each three-dimensional object using the three-dimensional spatial information, and A voxel information table characterized in that the host computer (2) calculates a three-dimensional object intersecting each voxel by converting the information into information indicating the three-dimensional object intersecting each voxel. Generation method.