Real-time recursive specular reflections on planar and curved surfaces using graphics hardware

Real-time rendering of recursive reflections have previously been done using different techniques. However, a fast unified approach for capturing recursive reflections on both planar and curved surfaces, as well as glossy reflections and interreflections between such primitives, have not been described. This paper describes a framework for efficient simulation of recursive specular reflections in scenes containing both planar and curved surfaces. We describe and compare two methods that utilize texture mapping and environment mapping, while having reasonable memory requirements. The methods are texture-based to allow for the simulation of glossy reflections using image-filtering. We show that the methods can render recursive reflections in static and dynamic scenes in real-time on current consumer graphics hardware. The methods make it possible to obtain a realism close to ray traced images at interactive frame rates.