A Multi-Agent System Approach Applied to Light Raycasting

Abstract

Light and shadows caused by the interaction with objects are important features in computer graphics which areusually taken into account to achieve realistic images. In order to simulate them, some attempts have been carried outwhich are based on direct illumination classical approaches as shadow mapping and shadow volumes. However,classical approaches in their beginnings could not support semi-transparent objects, soft-shadows, light interactionsinside objects and the possibility to update a scene based on previous information.In this paper a novel shadow casting approach is proposed to solve the previously mentioned problem using aninteractive cooperative multi agent system to provide a better understanding and easy customization of the renderedscenes; for instance, the scenes are represented with object agents that propagate rectilinear photon informationthrough them causing several changes on photon properties such as wavelength, intensity, among others. Thissystem uses a two-dimensional space represented by pixels.Our multi-agent system (MAS) uses a blackboard architecture for storing and sharing data and the implicit invocationdesign pattern. The system was developed to calculate direct illumination in a two-dimensional space. In addition, theproposed system supports point light agents, opaque agents, semi-opaque agents and empty agents.A comparison is presented between the classic approaches and the proposed one presented in this work in scenescomposed of opaque and semi-opaque objects. The proposed approach, as opposed to the classical ones, allows theshadows to be casted by the light that passes through semi-opaque objects. The light is casted by one or many lightagents producing hard and soft shadows.