a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 1: These images illustrate our ambient occlusion approximation running in real-time on a modern GPU. Our method can be used for a number of applications including (a) Rendering high-detail models; this model has around 65K triangles. (b) Dynamic/deforming models (that undergo non-rigid deformations) (c) Enhancing natural objects such as trees, and in games where models such as cars are used. (d) Realistic rendering of molecular data. Abstract We introduce a visually

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... t ambient occlusion approximation running on real-time graphics hardware. Our method is a multi-pass algorithm that separates the ambient occlusion problem into highfrequency, detailed ambient occlusion and low-frequency, distant ambient occlusion domains, both capable of running independently and in parallel. The high-frequency detailed approach uses an image-space method to approximate the ambient occlusion due to nearby occluders caused by high surface detail. The low-frequency approach uses the intrinsic properties of a modern GPU to greatly reduce the search area for large and distant occluders with the help of a low-detail approximated version of the occluder geometry. Our method utilizes the highly parallel, stream processors (GPUs) to perform real-time visually pleasant ambient occlusion. We show that our ambient occlusion approximation works on a wide variety of applications such as molecular data visualization, dynamic deformable animated models, highly detailed geometry. Our algorithm demonstrates scalability and is well-suited for the current and upcoming graphics hardware.