DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (US Pub. 2016/0171753), hereinafter Park, in view of Talbot et al. (NPL: Importance Resampling for Global Illumination), hereinafter Talbot.
Regarding claim 1, Park discloses a method comprising: at a device: determining light values for a plurality of points within a scene, wherein the plurality of points are included on both one or more light sources within the scene and one or more geometries within the scene (Paragraph [0067]: the 3D rendering apparatus applies the global illumination effect to the 3D model by combining a result of direct light shading and a result of indirect light shading. The direct light shading is a method of changing an illumination intensity of a surface of a 3D object based on a distance and an angle of light radiated from a direct light source. The indirect light shading is a method of changing the illumination intensity of the surface of the 3D object included in the 3D model based on a distance and an angle of light radiated from an indirect light source in a process of rendering the 3D model; Paragraphs [0079]-[0080]: FIG. 3A, a 3D model includes 3D objects, for example, a 3D object 320 and a 3D object 330, and a direct light source 310. Although a single direct light source 310 is illustrated herein for ease of description, the 3D model may have a plurality of direct light sources. The direct light source 310 included in the 3D model is a light source directly radiating light to the 3D object 320. A bright region and a dark region in a virtual space in which the 3D model is to be rendered are first determined based on a positional relationship between the direct light source 310 and the 3D object 320. Light 340 radiated from the direct light source 310 may be reflected, refracted, or diffracted by the 3D object 320. In the example in FIG. 3A, the light 340 output from the direct light source 310 is reflected by the 3D object 320 and then reflected again by the 3D object 330. In the example in FIG. 3A, the 3D object 330 is a wall surrounding an adjacent area of the 3D object 320. The 3D model is rendered from a viewpoint of a camera 315, and a resulting image obtained by the rendering is provided to a user…Referring to FIG. 3B, an indirect light source 355 is positioned in a region in which the light 340 output from the direct light source 310 is reflected by the 3D object 320, and indirect light sources 350 and 360 are positioned in respective regions in which the light 340 is reflected by the 3D object 330. In an operation on which the 3D model including the 3D objects 320 and 330 is rendered, illumination effects by the indirect light sources 350, 355, and 360 in addition to the direct light source 310 are applied to the 3D model, and thus the 3D model may be rendered”, and par. 102: “Referring to FIG. 7, a 3D rendering apparatus samples the indirect light source 710 providing an indirect lighting effect from the matched image 640, and determines a region in which the indirect light source 710 is to be arranged in a 3D model based on a result of the sampling); performing a shading operation by casting a shadow ray from a point being shaded in the scene to the sampled point (Fig. 3A; Paragraph [0108]: In operation 840, the 3D rendering apparatus renders the 3D model by applying an indirect lighting effect of the indirect light source to the 3D model. The 3D rendering apparatus implements a global illumination effect by applying, to the 3D model, indirect light shading of the indirect light source and direct light shading of the direct light sources. The 3D rendering apparatus outputs a resulting image obtained by rendering the 3D model).
Park does not explicitly disclose in a single step, sampling a point from the plurality of points included on both the one or more light sources within the scene and the one or more geometries within the scene, wherein a probability of each point in the plurality of points being sampled in the single step is proportional to the light value of the point.
However, Talbot teaches global illumination (Abstract), further comprising in a single step, sampling a point from the plurality of points included on both the one or more light sources within the scene and the one or more geometries within the scene (Section 5.1: in order to use Equation (3) is too computationally expensive. Instead we will use the ap proximation given by Equation (4) to compute robust values of M and N. As described in Section 4.3, we must first ap proximate TX and TY. To do this, we cast a few thousand primary rays. We then track the time necessary to compute the direct lighting at the first hit point. TX is the average time necessary to sample the light source and compute g. TY is the average time to check the visibility. The time necessary to estimate these values is negligible… scenes of similar complexity, the values of TX and TY will probably be quite stable. Thus, these values could be precomputed for a particular renderer implementation. If precomputed, robust RIS would require absolutely no extra computation time over standard importance sampling. The images in Figure 4 show a dragon lit by two polygonal light sources and an environment map. The left image uses standard importance sampling), wherein a probability of each point in the plurality of points being sampled in the single step is proportional to the light value of the point (Section 3: we want to generate samples from a sampling distribution with pdf g, but cannot do so directly (e.g. us ing the CDF inversion technique) because g does not have an analytic closed form or is too complex to integrate and in vert. We can, instead, generate a set of samples from a source distribution, p, weight these samples appropriately, then re sample these samples by drawing a single sample from them with probability proportional to its weight; Section 4.2: Equation (2) suggests three guidelines for choosing g and p. First, g should be more proportional to f than p is to f. If this is not true, standard importance sampling will have equal or lower variance than RIS. Second, g and p should be as proportional to f as possible. This directly reduces the variance. Third, g and p should be computationally cheap to sample and evaluate (in comparison to f). RIS depends upon evaluating g and p multiple times for each sample). Talbot teaches that this will allow for more realistic-looking images (Abstract). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Park with the features of above as taught by Talbot so as to allow for more realistic-looking images as presented by Talbot.
Regarding claim 2, Park, in view of Talbot teaches the method of claim 1, Park discloses wherein determining the light values for the plurality of points within the scene includes determining lighting contributions for the plurality of points included on both the one or more light sources within the scene and the one or more geometries within the scene (Fig. 7; Paragraph [0067]: the 3D rendering apparatus applies the global illumination effect to the 3D model by combining a result of direct light shading and a result of indirect light shading. The direct light shading is a method of changing an illumination intensity of a surface of a 3D object based on a distance and an angle of light radiated from a direct light source. The indirect light shading is a method of changing the illumination intensity of the surface of the 3D object included in the 3D model based on a distance and an angle of light radiated from an indirect light source in a process of rendering the 3D model; Paragraphs [0102]-[0108]: Referring to FIG. 7, a 3D rendering apparatus samples the indirect light source 710 providing an indirect lighting effect from the matched image 640, and determines a region in which the indirect light source 710 is to be arranged in a 3D model based on a result of the sampling. For example, the 3D rendering apparatus samples the indirect light source 710 from the matched image 640 using an importance sampling method. In the importance sampling method, a probability that the indirect light source 710 is to be sampled is determined based on an attribute, for example, an intensity, a color, and a flux, indicated in the matched image 640, and information on the determined probability is expressed as an importance map. The 3D rendering apparatus samples the indirect light source 710 from the matched image 640 based on the information on the probability included in the importance map…the 3D rendering apparatus samples the indirect light source 710 based on an intensity distribution, a bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF), or a bidirectional surface scattering reflectance distribution function (BSSRDF) of the matched image 640. For example, the 3D rendering apparatus determines information on a probability that the indirect light source 710 is to be sampled based on a light intensity value of each pixel included in the matched image 640, and determines a region in which the indirect light source 710 is to be arranged based on the determined information on the probability. A probability that the indirect light source 710 is to be sampled from a bright region in the matched image 640 may be set relatively higher than a probability that the indirect light source 710 is to be sampled from a dark region in the matched image 640…In operation 830, the 3D rendering apparatus samples at least one indirect light source using the matched image generated in operation 820. For example, the 3D rendering apparatus determines a probability that an indirect light source is to be sampled in each region of the matched image based on an attribute, for example, an intensity, a color, and a flux, indicated in the matched image, and samples the indirect light source from the matched image based on the determined probability…operation 840, the 3D rendering apparatus renders the 3D model by applying an indirect lighting effect of the indirect light source to the 3D model. The 3D rendering apparatus implements a global illumination effect by applying, to the 3D model, indirect light shading of the indirect light source and direct light shading of the direct light sources. The 3D rendering apparatus outputs a resulting image obtained by rendering the 3D model).
Regarding claim 3, Park, in view of Talbot teaches the method of claim 2, Talbot discloses wherein each of the lighting contributions includes both emitted light and reflected light (Fig. 3A; Paragraph [0059]: the direct light sources and the indirect light sources are virtual light sources that assign the illumination effect to the 3D model. A direct light source is a light source that directly radiates light to the 3D model, and an indirect light source is a light source that radiates light from a region in which the light radiated from the direct light source is reflected, refracted, or diffracted. The 3D rendering apparatus applies a more realistic illumination effect by appropriately arranging the indirect light sources in the 3D model; Paragraph [0079]: Referring to FIG. 3A, a 3D model includes 3D objects, for example, a 3D object 320 and a 3D object 330, and a direct light source 310. Although a single direct light source 310 is illustrated herein for ease of description, the 3D model may have a plurality of direct light sources. The direct light source 310 included in the 3D model is a light source directly radiating light to the 3D object 320. A bright region and a dark region in a virtual space in which the 3D model is to be rendered are first determined based on a positional relationship between the direct light source 310 and the 3D object 320. Light 340 radiated from the direct light source 310 may be reflected, refracted, or diffracted by the 3D object 320. In the example in FIG. 3A, the light 340 output from the direct light source 310 is reflected by the 3D object 320 and then reflected again by the 3D object 330. In the example in FIG. 3A, the 3D object 330 is a wall surrounding an adjacent area of the 3D object 320. The 3D model is rendered from a viewpoint of a camera 315, and a resulting image obtained by the rendering is provided to a user).
Regarding claim 4, Park, in view of Talbot teaches the method of claim 2, Talbot discloses wherein the lighting contributions for the plurality of points included on both the one or more light sources within the scene and the one or more geometries within the scene are each determined by performing a data lookup within a global illumination data structure prepared for both the one or more light sources within the scene and the one or more geometries within the scene (Section 3: we choose wj = g(Xj) p(Xj) , then the resulting sample Y will be approximately distributed according to g. The effect of the resampling step is to take samples from the source den sity, p, and “filter” them, so that the resulting sample, Y, has a distribution that approximates g). A person skilled in the art would infer that the weights w in section 3 of Talbot could be stored in an array (a data structure) whose elements could be looked up using the index j. In Park as modified by Talbot, wj corresponds to a lighting contribution of sample j.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park, in view of Talbot, and further in view of Efraimidis et al. (NPL: Weighted Random Sampling With A Reservoir), hereinafter Efraimidis.
Regarding claim 5, Park, in view of Talbot teaches the method of claim 4.
Park, in view of Talbot does not explicitly disclose wherein the light values for the plurality of points within the scene are determined during illumination gathering in which both the one or more light sources within the scene and the one or more geometries within the scene are considered as candidate light sources.
However, Efraimidis teaches sampling data (Section 1), comprising wherein the light values for the plurality of points within the scene are determined during illumination gathering in which both the one or more light sources within the scene and the one or more geometries within the scene are considered as candidate light sources (Section 3: operations can be implemented efficiently in sequential, distributed and parallel settings. With the use of a reservoir of size m to store the candidates for the final sample, all operations can be accomplished in a single scan over the entire (possibly unknown) population. A reservoir-type instantiation of Algorithm A is the following Algorithm A-Res). Efraimidis teaches that this will allow for efficient sampling (Section 3). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Park, in view of Efraimidis with the features of above as taught by Talbot so as to allow for efficient sampling as presented by Efraimidis.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Cheng et al. (US Pub. 2015/0022449) teaches a sampling technique for generating lighting samples.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW D SALVUCCI whose telephone number is (571)270-5748. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:30-4:00PT.
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/MATTHEW SALVUCCI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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