Cycles: improved Beckmann sampling using precomputed data

It turns out that the new Beckmann sampling function doesn't work well with
Quasi Monte Carlo sampling, mainly near normal incidence where it can be worse
than the previous sampler. In the new sampler the random number pattern gets
split in two, warped and overlapped, which hurts the stratification, see the
visualization in the differential revision.

Now we use a precomputed table, which is much better behaved. GGX does not seem
to benefit from using a precomputed table.

Disadvantage is that this table adds 1MB of memory usage and 0.03s startup time
to every render (on my quad core CPU).

Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D614

2 files changed, 107 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/intern/cycles/render/shader.cpp b/intern/cycles/render/shader.cpp
index 662caed72f1..87107ae642d 100644
--- a/intern/cycles/render/shader.cpp
+++ b/intern/cycles/render/shader.cpp
@@ -31,6 +31,95 @@
 
 CCL_NAMESPACE_BEGIN
 
+/* Beckmann sampling precomputed table, see bsdf_microfacet.h */
+
+/* 2D slope distribution (alpha = 1.0) */
+static float beckmann_table_P22(const float slope_x, const float slope_y)
+{
+	return expf(-(slope_x*slope_x + slope_y*slope_y));
+}
+
+/* maximal slope amplitude (range that contains 99.99% of the distribution) */
+static float beckmann_table_slope_max()
+{
+	return 6.0;
+}
+
+static void beckmann_table_rows(float *table, int row_from, int row_to)
+{
+	/* allocate temporary data */
+	const int DATA_TMP_SIZE = 512;
+	vector<double> slope_x(DATA_TMP_SIZE);
+	vector<double> CDF_P22_omega_i(DATA_TMP_SIZE);
+
+	/* loop over incident directions */
+	for(int index_theta = row_from; index_theta < row_to; index_theta++) {
+		/* incident vector */
+		const float cos_theta = index_theta / (BECKMANN_TABLE_SIZE - 1.0f);
+		const float sin_theta = safe_sqrtf(1.0f - cos_theta*cos_theta);
+
+		/* for a given incident vector
+		 * integrate P22_{omega_i}(x_slope, 1, 1), Eq. (10) */
+		slope_x[0] = -beckmann_table_slope_max();
+		CDF_P22_omega_i[0] = 0;
+
+		for(int index_slope_x = 1; index_slope_x < DATA_TMP_SIZE; ++index_slope_x) {
+			/* slope_x */
+			slope_x[index_slope_x] = -beckmann_table_slope_max() + 2.0f * beckmann_table_slope_max() * index_slope_x/(DATA_TMP_SIZE - 1.0f);
+
+			/* dot product with incident vector */
+			float dot_product = fmaxf(0.0f, -slope_x[index_slope_x]*sin_theta + cos_theta);
+			/* marginalize P22_{omega_i}(x_slope, 1, 1), Eq. (10) */
+			float P22_omega_i = 0.0f;
+
+			for(int j = 0; j < 100; ++j) {
+				float slope_y = -beckmann_table_slope_max() + 2.0f * beckmann_table_slope_max() * j * (1.0f/99.0f);
+				P22_omega_i += dot_product * beckmann_table_P22(slope_x[index_slope_x], slope_y);
+			}
+
+			/* CDF of P22_{omega_i}(x_slope, 1, 1), Eq. (10) */
+			CDF_P22_omega_i[index_slope_x] = CDF_P22_omega_i[index_slope_x - 1] + P22_omega_i;
+		}
+
+		/* renormalize CDF_P22_omega_i */
+		for(int index_slope_x = 1; index_slope_x < DATA_TMP_SIZE; ++index_slope_x)
+			CDF_P22_omega_i[index_slope_x] /= CDF_P22_omega_i[DATA_TMP_SIZE - 1];
+
+		/* loop over random number U1 */
+		int index_slope_x = 0;
+
+		for(int index_U = 0; index_U < BECKMANN_TABLE_SIZE; ++index_U) {
+			const float U = 0.0000001f + 0.9999998f * index_U / (float)(BECKMANN_TABLE_SIZE - 1);
+
+			/* inverse CDF_P22_omega_i, solve Eq.(11) */
+			while(CDF_P22_omega_i[index_slope_x] <= U)
+				++index_slope_x;
+
+			const double interp =
+				(CDF_P22_omega_i[index_slope_x] - U) /
+				(CDF_P22_omega_i[index_slope_x] - CDF_P22_omega_i[index_slope_x - 1]);
+
+			/* store value */
+			table[index_U + index_theta*BECKMANN_TABLE_SIZE] = (float)(
+				interp * slope_x[index_slope_x - 1]
+				+ (1.0f-interp) * slope_x[index_slope_x]);
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+static void beckmann_table_build(vector<float>& table)
+{
+	table.resize(BECKMANN_TABLE_SIZE*BECKMANN_TABLE_SIZE);
+
+	/* multithreaded build */
+	TaskPool pool;
+
+	for(int i = 0; i < BECKMANN_TABLE_SIZE; i+=8)
+		pool.push(function_bind(&beckmann_table_rows, &table[0], i, i+8));
+
+	pool.wait_work();
+}
+
 /* Shader */
 
 Shader::Shader()
@@ -138,6 +227,7 @@ ShaderManager::ShaderManager()
 {
 	need_update = true;
 	blackbody_table_offset = TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID;
+	beckmann_table_offset = TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID;
 }
 
 ShaderManager::~ShaderManager()
@@ -282,19 +372,28 @@ void ShaderManager::device_update_common(Device *device, DeviceScene *dscene, Sc
 	device->tex_alloc("__shader_flag", dscene->shader_flag);
 
 	/* blackbody lookup table */
-	KernelBlackbody *kblackbody = &dscene->data.blackbody;
+	KernelTables *ktables = &dscene->data.tables;
 	
 	if(has_converter_blackbody && blackbody_table_offset == TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID) {
 		vector<float> table = blackbody_table();
 		blackbody_table_offset = scene->lookup_tables->add_table(dscene, table);
 		
-		kblackbody->table_offset = (int)blackbody_table_offset;
+		ktables->blackbody_offset = (int)blackbody_table_offset;
 	}
 	else if(!has_converter_blackbody && blackbody_table_offset != TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID) {
 		scene->lookup_tables->remove_table(blackbody_table_offset);
 		blackbody_table_offset = TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID;
 	}
 
+	/* beckmann lookup table */
+	if(beckmann_table_offset == TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID) {
+		vector<float> table;
+		beckmann_table_build(table);
+		beckmann_table_offset = scene->lookup_tables->add_table(dscene, table);
+		
+		ktables->beckmann_offset = (int)beckmann_table_offset;
+	}
+
 	/* integrator */
 	KernelIntegrator *kintegrator = &dscene->data.integrator;
 	kintegrator->use_volumes = has_volumes;
@@ -308,6 +407,11 @@ void ShaderManager::device_free_common(Device *device, DeviceScene *dscene, Scen
 		blackbody_table_offset = TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID;
 	}
 
+	if(beckmann_table_offset != TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID) {
+		scene->lookup_tables->remove_table(beckmann_table_offset);
+		beckmann_table_offset = TABLE_OFFSET_INVALID;
+	}
+
 	device->tex_free(dscene->shader_flag);
 	dscene->shader_flag.clear();
 }
diff --git a/intern/cycles/render/shader.h b/intern/cycles/render/shader.h
index 84be4b469d8..0ed6d2ddf01 100644
--- a/intern/cycles/render/shader.h
+++ b/intern/cycles/render/shader.h
@@ -149,6 +149,7 @@ protected:
 	AttributeIDMap unique_attribute_id;
 
 	size_t blackbody_table_offset;
+	size_t beckmann_table_offset;
 };
 
 CCL_NAMESPACE_END