Review of Displacement Mapping Techniques and Optimization

Abstract: This paper explores different bump mapping techniques and their implementation. Bump mapping is a technique that is used in computer games to make simple 3D objects look more detailed than what they really are. The technique involves using a texture to change the objects normals to simulate bumps and is used to avoid rendering high polygonal objects. Over the years some different techniques have been developed based on bump mapping, these are normal mapping, relief mapping, parallax occlusion mapping, quadtree displacement mapping and so on. The first part of this paper we go through our goals and our research methodology. We then write about four different techniques and describe how they work. We also go through how they are implemented. After that we start our experiments and measure the different techniques against each other. When the first testing has been done, we start to optimize the techniques and run a second test to see how much faster, if it is faster, the optimization is compared to the previous tests. When the tests are done, we present our test data and analyse them. Finally we discuss the techniques and the testing. Then we finish up with a conclusion.