Quad-Based Fourier Transform for Efficient Diffraction Synthesis

Far-field diffraction can be evaluated using the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) in image space but it is costly due to its dense sampling. We propose a technique based on a closed-form solution of the continuous Fourier transform for simple vector primitives (quads) and propose a hierarchical and progressive evaluation to achieve real-time performance. Our method is able to simulate diffraction effects in optical systems and can handle varying visibility due to dynamic light sources. Furthermore, it seamlessly extends to near-field diffraction. We show the benefit of our solution in various applications, including realistic real-time glare and bloom rendering.

@Article { SLE18,
  author       = "Scandolo, Leonardo and Lee, Sungkil and Eisemann, Elmar",
  title        = "Quad-Based Fourier Transform for Efficient Diffraction Synthesis",
  journal      = "Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. of EGSR)",
  number       = "4",
  volume       = "37",
  year         = "2018",
  url          = "http://graphics.tudelft.nl/Publications-new/2018/SLE18"
}