Learning to Rasterize Differentiably

1University College London  2The University of Manchester
Computer Graphics Forum (EGSR 2024)

Abstract

Differentiable rasterization changes the standard formulation of primitive rasterization -by enabling gradient flow from a pixel to its underlying triangles- using distribution functions in different stages of rendering, creating a ''soft'' version of the original rasterizer. However, choosing the optimal softening function that ensures the best performance and convergence to a desired goal requires trial and error. Previous work has analyzed and compared several combinations of softening. In this work, we take it a step further and, instead of making a combinatorial choice of softening operations, parameterize the continuous space of common softening operations. We study meta-learning tunable softness functions over a set of inverse rendering tasks (2D and 3D shape, pose and occlusion) so it generalizes to new and unseen differentiable rendering tasks with optimal softness.

Play around with different functions

Global Scale: 10-1.0

Heaviside

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Logistic

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Cauchy

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Reciprocal

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Laplace

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Uniform

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Gudermannian

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Cubic Hermite

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Gaussian

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Wigner Semicircle

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Gumbel Max

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Gumbel Min

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Exponential

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Gamma

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Levy

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Negative Levy

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Results

1. 2D Shape Optimization

Ours MLP Gaussian Logistic Exponential(R) Gamma(R,0.5)
Optimization     Reference Optimization     Reference Optimization     Reference Optimization     Reference Optimization     Reference
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2. 3D Shape Optimization

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3. Pose Optimization

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4. Occlusion Optimization

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BibTeX

@article{10.1111:cgf.15145,
journal = {Computer Graphics Forum},
title = {{Learning to Rasterize Differentiably}},
author = {Wu, Chenghao and Mailee, Hamila and Montazeri, Zahra and Ritschel, Tobias},
year = {2024},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.},
ISSN = {1467-8659},
DOI = {10.1111/cgf.15145}
}