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Abstract

Shadows are essential to realistic and visually appealing images, but they are difficult to compute in most display environments. This survey will characterize the various types of shadows, describe most existing shadow algorithms, and for each one discuss their complexities, their advantages and their shortcomings. The types of shadows examined are "hard shadows", "soft shadows", shadows of transparent objects, and shadows for complex modeling primitives. For each type, we examine shadow algorithms within various rendering techniques.

The goal of the survey is to provide readers with enough background and insight on the various methods to allow them to choose the algorithm best suited to their needs. It is also hoped that our analysis will help identify the areas that need more research, and point to possible solutions.

BibTeX entry

@Article{Woo:1990:SSA,
  author =       "Andrew Woo and Pierre Poulin and Alain Fournier",
  title =        "A Survey of Shadow Algorithms",
  journal =      "IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications",
  volume =       "10",
  number =       "6",
  pages =        "13--32",
  month =        nov,
  year =         "1990",
  coden =        "ICGADZ",
  ISSN =         "0272-1716",
  bibdate =      "Sat Jan 25 06:42:48 MST 1997",
  acknowledgement = ack-nhfb,
  affiliation =  "Alias Research, Toronto, Ont, Canada",
  annote =       "Essential to realistic and visually appealing images,
                 shadows are difficult to compute in most display
                 environments. This survey characterizes the various
                 types of shadows. It also describes most existing
                 shadow algorithms and discusses their complexities,
                 advantages, and shortcomings. We examine hard shadows,
                 soft shadows, shadows of transparent objects, and
                 shadows for complex modeling primitives. For each type,
                 we examine shadow algorithms within various rendering
                 techniques. \\ This survey attempts to provide readers
                 with enough background and insight on the various
                 methods to allow them to choose the algorithm best
                 suited to their needs. We also hope that our analysis
                 will help identify the areas that need more research
                 and point to possible solutions.",
  classification = "723; 741",
  journalabr =   "IEEE Comput Graphics Appl",
  keywords =     "Bidirectional Ray Tracing; Computer Graphics; Hard
                 Shadow Generation; Image Processing; Image Rendering;
                 Shadow Algorithms; Shadow Volumes; Soft Shadow
                 Generation; survey",
}

Online Version