Tag Archives: Voxel

Voxel visualization using DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect

https://www.mominleggings.com/1pzg32h6g This week end I worked with the DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect function, and since I didn’t find that much informations I wanted to share my results.

https://wasmorg.com/2024/03/07/32f90oc The next step for my voxel cone tracing project was to generate mip maps for my voxel grid. I implemented a first draft, but I needed a better way of displaying my voxel grid, to make sure that they all of them were correct.

https://tankinz.com/8rny6jb I was using the depth map to compute the world position. Then I transformed it into voxel grid coordinates to find the color of the matching voxel.

DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect

The problem is that, as shown in the screenshot, it doesn’t allow seeing the real voxelized geometry, and it’s hard to have a clear idea of the imprecision induced by the voxels.

https://fotballsonen.com/2024/03/07/g0b3jcb7rk5 That’s why I started to work on a way to draw all voxels, using the DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect function. Draw instanced allows to draw several times a unique object, here I just draw a simple cube, and to apply instance specific parameters on each of them.

https://ncmm.org/9lwtbya3 The “indirect” functions are the same as the “non indirect” ones, except that the arguments are contained in a buffer. It means that the CPU doesn’t have to be aware of the arguments of the function, it can be created by a compute shader, and directly used to call another function.

https://www.jamesramsden.com/2024/03/07/yi57b7f I have a buffer containing all my voxels, and the first thing I wantto know  is how many of them are not empty (that will be the number of instances to draw), and their positions within my voxel grid.

https://musiciselementary.com/2024/03/07/6e3st7vb The first step is to create the buffer that will be used to feed the DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect function:

Cheapest Tramadol Cod D3D11_BUFFER_DESC bufferDesc; ZeroMemory(&bufferDesc, sizeof(bufferDesc)); bufferDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(UINT) * 5; bufferDesc.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DEFAULT; bufferDesc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_UNORDERED_ACCESS; bufferDesc.CPUAccessFlags = 0; bufferDesc.MiscFlags = D3D11_RESOURCE_MISC_DRAWINDIRECT_ARGS; bufferDesc.StructureByteStride = sizeof(float); hr = m_pd3dDevice->CreateBuffer(&bufferDesc, NULL, pBuffer);

http://countocram.com/2024/03/07/ym8648f2z The important flag here is D3D11_RESOURCE_MISC_DRAWINDIRECT_ARGS, to specify that the buffer will be used as a parameter for a draw indirect call.

https://giannifava.org/gtvbd02 Next, the associated unordered access view to be able to write into it from a compute shader.

https://www.goedkoopvliegen.nl/uncategorized/v25t37y D3D11_UNORDERED_ACCESS_VIEW_DESC uavDesc; ZeroMemory(&uavDesc, sizeof(uavDesc)); uavDesc.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_R32_UINT; uavDesc.ViewDimension = D3D11_UAV_DIMENSION_BUFFER; uavDesc.Buffer.FirstElement = 0; uavDesc.Buffer.Flags = 0; uavDesc.Buffer.NumElements = 5; hr = m_pd3dDevice->CreateUnorderedAccessView(*pBuffer, &uavDesc, pBufferUAV);

 

https://asperformance.com/uncategorized/p6lkocg31t As I said early I need to be able to know the position of the voxels in the voxel grid, to be able to find their position in the world, and I’ll be able to find their color. For that I use an Append Buffer,  an other usefull type of buffer that behave pretty much like a stack. When you “Append” a data, it will be put at the end of the buffer, and an hidden counter of element will be incremented.

Here is how I created this buffer and the associated SRV and UAV:

https://www.jamesramsden.com/2024/03/07/psnseon7nv void Engine::CreateAppendBuffer(ID3D11Buffer** pBuffer, ID3D11UnorderedAccessView** pBufferUAV, ID3D11ShaderResourceView** pBufferSRV, const UINT pElementCount, const UINT pElementSize) { HRESULT hr; D3D11_BUFFER_DESC bufferDesc; ZeroMemory(&bufferDesc, sizeof(bufferDesc)); unsigned int stride = pElementSize; bufferDesc.ByteWidth = stride * pElementCount; bufferDesc.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DEFAULT; bufferDesc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_SHADER_RESOURCE | D3D11_BIND_UNORDERED_ACCESS; bufferDesc.CPUAccessFlags = 0; bufferDesc.MiscFlags = D3D11_RESOURCE_MISC_BUFFER_STRUCTURED; bufferDesc.StructureByteStride = stride; hr = m_pd3dDevice->CreateBuffer(&bufferDesc, NULL, pBuffer); if(FAILED(hr)) { MessageBox(NULL, L"Error creating the append buffer.", L"Ok", MB_OK); return; } D3D11_UNORDERED_ACCESS_VIEW_DESC uavDesc; ZeroMemory(&uavDesc, sizeof(uavDesc)); uavDesc.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_UNKNOWN; uavDesc.ViewDimension = D3D11_UAV_DIMENSION_BUFFER; uavDesc.Buffer.FirstElement = 0; uavDesc.Buffer.Flags = D3D11_BUFFER_UAV_FLAG_APPEND; uavDesc.Buffer.NumElements = pElementCount; hr = m_pd3dDevice->CreateUnorderedAccessView(*pBuffer, &uavDesc, pBufferUAV); if(FAILED(hr)) { MessageBox(NULL, L"Error creating the append buffer unordered access view.", L"Ok", MB_OK); return; } D3D11_SHADER_RESOURCE_VIEW_DESC srvDesc; ZeroMemory(&srvDesc, sizeof(srvDesc)); srvDesc.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_UNKNOWN; srvDesc.ViewDimension = D3D11_SRV_DIMENSION_BUFFER; srvDesc.Buffer.FirstElement = 0; srvDesc.Buffer.NumElements = pElementCount; hr = m_pd3dDevice->CreateShaderResourceView(*pBuffer, &srvDesc, pBufferSRV); if(FAILED(hr)) { MessageBox(NULL, L"Error creating the append buffer shader resource view.", L"Ok", MB_OK); return; } }

Now, the compute shader. It’s in fact pretty simple. First step, the first thread initialize my argument buffer to 0, except for the first argument that represent the number on indices in the index buffer that will be bind.

https://www.lcclub.co.uk/pnh906jlv6a Then, each time I found a non empty voxel, I increase the number of instances to draw using an InterlockedAdd, and I append it’s position in the perInstancePosition buffer.

AppendStructuredBuffer < uint3 > perInstancePosition:register(u0); RWStructuredBuffer < Voxel > voxelGrid:register(u1); [numthreads(VOXEL_CLEAN_THREADS, VOXEL_CLEAN_THREADS, VOXEL_CLEAN_THREADS)] void main( uint3 DTid : SV_DispatchThreadID ) { if ( DTid.x + DTid.y + DTid.z == 0) { testBuffer[0] = 36; testBuffer[1] = 0; testBuffer[2] = 0; testBuffer[3] = 0; testBuffer[4] = 0; } GroupMemoryBarrier(); uint3 voxelPos = DTid.xyz; int gridIndex = GetGridIndex(voxelPos); if (voxelGrid[gridIndex].m_Occlusion == 1) { uint drawIndex; InterlockedAdd(testBuffer[1], 1, drawIndex); VoxelParameters param; param.m_Position = voxelPos; perInstancePosition.Append(param); } }

https://asperformance.com/uncategorized/4honxdfb At the end of the execution of this computer shader the buffers are both filled with the information needed to draw all the voxels.

https://wasmorg.com/2024/03/07/3d9p7jry I use a really simple cube to represent the geometry of a voxel:

https://www.worldhumorawards.org/uncategorized/at1vb06joyf // Create the voxel vertices. VertexPosition tempVertices[] = { { XMFLOAT3( -0.5f,  0.5f, -0.5f )}, { XMFLOAT3(  0.5f,  0.5f, -0.5f )}, { XMFLOAT3(  0.5f,  0.5f,  0.5f )}, { XMFLOAT3( -0.5f,  0.5f,  0.5f )}, { XMFLOAT3( -0.5f, -0.5f, -0.5f )}, { XMFLOAT3(  0.5f, -0.5f, -0.5f )}, { XMFLOAT3(  0.5f, -0.5f,  0.5f )}, { XMFLOAT3( -0.5f, -0.5f,  0.5f )}, }; // Create index buffer WORD indicesTemp[] = { 3,1,0, 2,1,3, 6,4,5, 7,4,6, 3,4,7, 0,4,3, 1,6,5, 2,6,1, 0,5,4, 1,5,0, 2,7,6, 3,7,2 };

https://www.mominleggings.com/w3n1e92ik I can now bind this index and vertex buffer, the perInstancePosition and voxelGrid buffers, and start to write the shaders. The goal is simple, each item in the perInstancePosition is a uint3 reprensenting the position of a “non empty” voxel in the voxel grid. I just need to move the vertices to the right world position, increase the size of my unit cube to match the size of a voxel, and to find the right color to pass it to the pixel shader.

Here is my vertex shader:

https://giannifava.org/b7f2ab3z9 #include "VoxelizerShaderCommon.hlsl" StructuredBuffer < uint3 > voxelParameters: register(t0); StructuredBuffer < Voxel > voxelGrid: register(t1); cbuffer ConstantBuffer: register(b0) { matrix g_ViewMatrix; matrix g_ProjMatrix; float4 g_SnappedGridPosition; float g_CellSize; } struct VoxelInput { float3 Position : POSITION0; uint InstanceId : SV_InstanceID; }; struct VertexOutput { float4 Position: SV_POSITION; float3 Color: COLOR0; }; VertexOutput main( VoxelInput input) { VertexOutput output; uint3 voxelGridPos = voxelParameters[input.InstanceId]; int halfCells = NBCELLS/2; float3 voxelPosFloat = voxelGridPos; float3 offset = voxelGridPos - float3(halfCells, halfCells, halfCells); offset *= g_CellSize; offset += g_SnappedGridPosition.xyz; float4 voxelWorldPos = float4(input.Position*g_CellSize + offset, 1.0f); float4 viewPosition = mul(voxelWorldPos, g_ViewMatrix); output.Position = mul(viewPosition, g_ProjMatrix); uint index = GetGridIndex(voxelGridPos); output.Color = voxelGrid[index].Color; return output; }

An interesting thing here is the instanceId, automatically created by the draw instanced command, that  identify each instance, allowing me to create a voxel for each position in the buffer.

Order 180 Tramadol Cod The pixel shader is really straightforward:

struct VertexOutput { float4 Position: SV_POSITION; float3 Color: COLOR0; }; float4 main(VertexOutput input) : SV_TARGET { return float4(input.Color, 1.0f); }

Order Tramadol India And finally I call the DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect function :

engine->GetImmediateContext()->DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect(argBuffer, 0);

 

This is just an example, but the draw indirect functions allow to do a lot of things using only the gpu, without the need to synchronise with the cpu. It’s a powerfull tool, and I really want to try more stuff whith that.

And to conclude, some screenshots for voxels grid of 32x32x32 and 256x256x256:

DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect

DrawIndexedInstancedIndirect

Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer

Last week I started to add a new feature to my tiled deferred renderer: voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer. A lot of recent techniques use a voxel grid (global illumination, volumetric effects, etc.) and I really wanted to experiment some of them, especially global illumination.

One paper in particular had caught my attention, voxel cone tracing.

The first step of this technique is voxelization using the hardware rasterizer. There are plenty of resources on this topic:

 

I’m sure there is more on this topic, but there are the main sources of information I used for the first step of my implementation.

This technique is based on a simple observation. We want to transform vector informations in a (3D) matrix. That’s the job of the rasterizer, except it’s done for a 2D grid. We just need to do some modifications so that it can also work on a 3D grid.

You can find all of the details in the previous links, but here is a quick overview of the different steps:

  • In the CPU code, compute the voxel grid position, extents, etc. and three view projection matrices, one for each axis. This will allow to project the triangles in the voxel grid space.
  • Draw the whole scene in a small render target. Depth test is deactivated in order to voxelize every triangles. Color write is deactivated as well. Results will be outputted in a structured buffer linked to the pixel shader, and nothing will be written on the texture.  Some minor modifications can be done to store static geometry in the grid, and update only dynamic objects to reduce the runtime calculations.
  • In the geometry shader, for the current triangle, the first step is to find the axis (X, Y or Z) from which the triangle is the most visible. This will ensure that most of it is voxelized.
  • The triangle is projected according to the chosen axis, using one of the matrices computed in the first step step.
  • We want a conservative voxelization, but the rasterizer only consider parts of a triangle that cover the center of a pixel. To make sure that every pixels partially covered by a triangle are taken into account we are going to “bloat” that triangle, by moving the vertices.
  • Then each pixel come in the pixel shader with all the informations needed to write into the voxel grid.

For now I choose to use a standard voxel grid instead of using a sparse octree. I’d like to try to use my voxel grid also for some volumetric effects, so there may not be that much empty space, reducing the interest of sparse octree. But maybe I’ll try to implement it later.

Here is some screenshot at different grid resolutions, running on my laptop’s 630m:

32x32x32:

Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer 32

128x128x128:Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer 128

256x256x256 :Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer 256

And here some screenshots from a NVidia GTX770 :

32x32x32:Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer

128*128*128:

Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer

256*256*256Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer256_GTX770

I even try a 512*512*512 grid, by removing all the voxel informations I don’t use yet, keeping only the color value:

Voxelization using the GPU hardware rasterizer 512_GTX770

It’s a huge amount of voxels, and I’m not sure if such a precision is needed, but 11.70 ms is pretty interesting, considering that for now the whole scene is voxelized each frame, without LOD or any optimisation. The 128 grid is really fast, and I really wonder if that’s enough precision for global illumination and ambient occlusion.

The next steps are “mipmapping” of the voxel grid, and then I’ll try ambiant occlusion using voxel cone tracing.

 

And after that I will implement a progressive screen space voxelizer (GPU Pro 4, chapter 6) to compare the results and performances.