Survey of Efficient Representations for Independent Unit Vectors
Published in Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques, 2014
Abstract
The bandwidth cost and memory footprint of vector buffers are limiting factors for GPU rendering in many applications. This article surveys time- and space-efficient representations for the important case of non-register, in-core, statistically independent unit vectors, with emphasis on GPU encoding and decoding. These representations are appropriate for unit vectors in a geometry buffer or attribute stream–where no correlation between adjacent vectors is easily available–or for those in a normal map where quality higher than that of DXN is required. We do not address out-of-core and register storage vectors because they favor minimum-space and maximum-speed alternatives, respectively.
Recommended Citation
Zina H. Cigolle, Sam Donow, Daniel Evangelakos, Michael Mara, Morgan McGuire, and Quirin Meyer. (2014). Survey of Efficient Representations for Independent Unit Vectors, Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT), vol. 3, no. 2, 1-30, 2014