Backface Distance Fields: Relaxing Signed Distance Fields

Róbert Bán, Csaba Bálint, Gábor Valasek

2025

Abstract

We propose backface distance functions, an implicit volume representation that improves the convergence rate of sphere tracing. We employ the closest signed distances to backfacing surface points, introducing a relaxed representation of signed distance functions. The backface and signed distance functions coincide within the volume. For external points, we prove that a backface distance-sized step is the largest direction-independent step along a ray that does not pass through the volume boundary more than once. We show analytic and discrete realizations of our concept. We present a discrete backface distance field generation method to construct exact and approximate fields from triangular meshes and procedural implicit scenes. We employ generation-time processing and correction steps in the discrete case to ensure robust surface visualization in combination with GPU filtering. We validate the proposed discrete and analytic representations empirically as well by comparing their performance to basic, relaxed, and enhanced sphere tracing and demonstrate that it generally outperforms the other methods.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Bán R., Bálint C. and Valasek G. (2025). Backface Distance Fields: Relaxing Signed Distance Fields. In Proceedings of the 20th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP; ISBN 978-989-758-728-3, SciTePress, pages 127-138. DOI: 10.5220/0013251700003912

in Bibtex Style

@conference{grapp25,
author={Róbert Bán and Csaba Bálint and Gábor Valasek},
title={Backface Distance Fields: Relaxing Signed Distance Fields},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 20th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP},
year={2025},
pages={127-138},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013251700003912},
isbn={978-989-758-728-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 20th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP
TI - Backface Distance Fields: Relaxing Signed Distance Fields
SN - 978-989-758-728-3
AU - Bán R.
AU - Bálint C.
AU - Valasek G.
PY - 2025
SP - 127
EP - 138
DO - 10.5220/0013251700003912
PB - SciTePress