Rendering Small Things: Hardware Micromaps and Particles
Doctoral Dissertation, 2026
Department of Computer Science
Lund University
Abstract
In computer graphics, there are numerous aspects that must be considered when rendering images of virtual scenes: What physical light-generating phenomena do we care about? How should object and material surfaces be described? And how should these be stored to ensure as fast and efficient image rendering as possible?
As a part of this thesis, a method for rendering images of scenes lit by virtual atomic particles traveling at superluminal speeds is presented that handles both the particle interactions and light generation in a unified ray-tracing framework. However, this form of ray-tracing can be very time-consuming. Thus, this work includes an investigation into accelerating one aspect of this process: Parallelizing the construction of the spatial split bounding volume hierarchy in a simple and straightforward way with the OpenMP framework. A similar ray-tracing process is then optimized for real-time rendering of partially-transparent triangle meshes by efficiently leveraging and compressing a structure known as micromaps that enables ray-tracing to work more efficiently for various alpha-masked geometries such as grass and foliage. This structure is subsequently generalized and extended to arbitrary surface attributes, with a thorough analysis of its performance, quality trade-offs, and potential future use-cases in the hardware accelerated real-time ray-tracing pipeline.
Details
- Thesis Advisor
- Assoc. Prof. Michael Doggett, Lund University
- Thesis Assistant Advisor
- Docent Flavius Gruian, Lund University
- Thesis Assistant Advisor
- Simone Pellegrini, Arm
- Faculty Opponent
- Assoc. Prof. Jeppe Frisvad, DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark
Downloads and Links
- DOI - https://portal.research.lu.se/sv/publications/rendering-small-things-hardware-micromaps-and-particles/
- PDF - Digital version, full resolution images.
- PDF - Digital version, low resolution images.
- PDF - Printed version.
BibTeX entry
@phdthesis{a3e44c3425b6455c9afa885e9df26625,
title = "Rendering Small Things: Hardware Micromaps and Particles",
abstract = "In computer graphics, there are numerous aspects that must be
considered when rendering images of virtual scenes: What
physical light-generating phenomena do we care about? How
should object and material surfaces be described? And how
should these be stored to ensure as fast and efficient image
rendering as possible? As a part of this thesis, a method for
rendering images of scenes lit by virtual atomic particles
traveling at superluminal speeds is presented that handles
both the particle interactions and light generation in a
unified ray-tracing framework. However, this form of
ray-tracing can be very time-consuming. Thus, this work
includes an investigation into accelerating one aspect of this
process: Parallelizing the construction of the spatial split
bounding volume hierarchy in a simple and straightforward way
with the OpenMP framework. A similar ray-tracing process is
then optimized for real-time rendering of
partially-transparent triangle meshes by efficiently
leveraging and compressing a structure known as micromaps that
enables ray-tracing to work more efficiently for various
alpha-masked geometries such as grass and foliage. This
structure is subsequently generalized and extended to
arbitrary surface attributes, with a thorough analysis of its
performance, quality trade-offs, and potential future
use-cases in the hardware accelerated real-time ray-tracing
pipeline.",
keywords = "Rendering, Ray-Tracing, Acceleration Structures, Micromaps,
Particles",
author = "Gustaf Waldemarson",
note = "Defence details Date: 2026-04-24 Time: 13:15 Place: Lecture
Hall E:1406, building E, Klas Anshelms v{\"a}g 10, Faculty of
Engineering LTH, Lund University, Lund. External reviewer(s)
Name: Frisvad, Jeppe Title: Assoc. Prof. Affiliation: DTU
Technical University of Denmark, Denmark. --- ",
year = "2026",
month = apr,
day = "24",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-91-8104-872-8",
series = "Dissertation",
publisher = "Department of Computer Science, Lund University",
type = "Doctoral Thesis (compilation)",
school = "Department of Computer Science",
}