Computer Graphics

New version 24.3 of the Mesa opensource 3D graphics library and drivers has been released. New features:

• Expose Vulkan 1.3 on v3dv, both rpi4 and rpi5
• VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer on nvk
• VK_EXT_post_depth_coverage on nvk
• VK_KHR_video_maintenance1 on radv
• VK_EXT_legacy_vertex_attributes on nvk
• GL_KHR_shader_subgroup on radeonsi
• VK_KHR_maintenance7 on nvk
• VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering_local_read on nvk
• GL_ARB_timer_query on Panfrost
• GL_EXT_disjoint_timer_query on Panfrost
• VK_KHR_pipeline_binary on RADV
• VK_KHR_compute_shader_derivatives on anv
• VK_NV_compute_shader_derivatives on nvk
• VK_KHR_compute_shader_derivatives on nvk
• VK_KHR_compute_shader_derivatives on radv
• VK_KHR_shader_relaxed_extended_instruction on anv, hasvk, hk, nvk, radv, tu, v3dv, lvp
• GL_OVR_multiview and GL_OVR_multiview2 on zink
• VK_KHR_shader_float_controls2 on radv
• VK_KHR_shader_float_controls2 on nvk
• VK_EXT_device_generated_commands on nvk, radv
• VK_EXT_host_image_copy on nvk/Turing+
• VK_EXT_depth_clamp_control on anv, hasvk, nvk, radv
• VK_KHR_shader_quad_control on nvk
• GL_EXT_draw_buffers2 on etnaviv/HALTI5+
• GL_ARB_draw_buffers_blend on etnaviv/HALTI5+
• VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate on NVK
• GL_ARB_draw_indirect on etnaviv/HALTI5+
• VK_EXT_depth_clamp_zero_one on NVK
• GL_ARB_framebuffer_no_attachments on etnaviv

The Vulkan Working Group at The Khronos Group has delivered a series of video decode and encode extensions since 2022 collectively referred to as "Vulkan Video." These extensions integrate hardware-accelerated stream compression and decompression using widely adopted codecs with the full power of Vulkan, enabling developers to seamlessly combine GPU-powered rendering and compute acceleration with video processing in a single highly efficient runtime.

Today, with the release of Vulkan 1.3.302, Khronos is proud to announce two new encode extensions. First, the highly anticipated Encode AV1 extension enhances Vulkan Video by adding AV1 encode functionality to complement its existing AV1 decode support. This milestone means that Vulkan Video now provides full decode AND encode acceleration for the H.264, H.265 and AV1 codec standards. Additionally, the new Encode Quantization Map extension introduces advanced encoding features for all supported codecs to Vulkan Video developers for the first time. We are confident these extensions provide the necessary building blocks for your advanced Vulkan Video applications!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22682449

Blender Foundation and the online developer community are proud to present Blender 4.3!

Packed with exciting improvements to existing tools (hello EEVEE Light Linking and multi-pass compositing!), performance boosts, and the foundations for the future (looking at you, Grease Pencil v3).

Plus, hundreds of contributions ranging from new features to accessibility enhancements—and as always: loads of fixes.

The following article is a historical look at the era that spawned first raytracers for home computers, a predecessor to Blender among them. Writing it was possible thanks to the fact, that, for the first time, the progam and source code of said predecessor are publicly available.

glTF has evolved beyond its origins as a standalone 3D format. It is now adopted as an ISO international standard and has become central to a rapidly expanding ecosystem of software tools, standards and extensions.

Given the central role of glTF in enabling 3D experiences across diverse platforms, devices and the web, it is crucial that the glTF ecosystem continue to evolve to meet the needs of content creators, engine vendors and application developers, as well as adapt to new use cases such as 3D shopping, education and training, architectural visualization, and many others.

This year, the Khronos 3D Formats Working Group has reached several significant milestones along the roadmap for developing glTF into an interoperable spatial computing format, and has several extension development efforts underway. Many key extensions for spatial consistency, improved material rendering and consistent render fidelity have now reached the Review Draft stage, where they are ready for detailed review and initial testing. There are also several new extensions in the Initial Draft phase, where the Working Group is seeking directional input to ensure specification development aligns with the community’s needs. We are cranking and getting work done!

This blog will review recent ecosystem updates, explain current specs nearing release candidacy, and highlight opportunities for community input, inviting glTF stakeholders to share useful feedback to shape the future development of the glTF ecosystem.

Creating realistic images has been a persistently challenging problem in computer graphics, especially when it comes to rendering scenes with complex lighting. Path tracing achieves photorealistic quality rendering by simulating the way light rays bounce around the scene and interact with different materials, but it also requires significant computation to generate clean images. This is where neural supersampling and denoising come into play. In this blog post, we describe how our neural supersampling and denoising work together to push the boundary for real-time path tracing.