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2. Improved Shader and Texture Level of Detail Using Ray Cones
 
 # Improved Shader and Texture Level of Detail Using Ray Cones

  ![](/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/publications/teaser_zoom_aniso.png?itok=7G7ezJha)

 In real-time ray tracing, texture filtering is an important technique to increase image quality. Current games, such as *Minecraft with RTX* on Windows 10, use ray cones to determine texture-filtering footprints. In this paper, we present several improvements to the ray-cones algorithm that improve image quality and performance and make it easier to adopt in game engines. We show that the total time per frame can decrease by around 10% in a GPU-based path tracer, and we provide a public-domain implementation.

**Errata:**

- Page 13, three lines from bottom, should say "w = 2r = 2t \\tan (\\alpha / 2)", i.e., add the factor "/ 2". Same with the expression for the radius, which should be "r = t \\tan (\\alpha / 2)".
- Figure 10: the angle "alpha" should be "alpha / 2".
- Page 16, next to last sentence above Listing 1 should be "\\texttt{SampleGrad}(2\\vc g\_1, 2\\vc g\_2)", i.e., add two factor of 2 inside the parenthesis.



 ## Authors



[Tomas Akenine-Möller](/index.php/person/tomas-akenine-moller)

[Cyril Crassin](/index.php/person/cyril-crassin)

Jakub Boksansky (NVIDIA)

Laurent Belcour (Unity Technologies)

Alexey Panteleev (NVIDIA)

Oli Wright (NVIDIA)

 

 

 ## Publication Date



Tuesday, April 27, 2021

 

 ## Published in



[Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques, 2021](http://jcgt.org/published/0010/01/01/)

 

 ## Research Area



[Computer Graphics](/index.php/research-area/computer-graphics)

 

 

 ## External Links



[Code in Falcor (see TexLODHelpers.slang)](https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/Falcor/blob/master/Source/Falcor/Rendering/Materials/TexLODHelpers.slang)

 

 

 ## Uploaded Files



[Akenine-Moller2021LOD.pdf](https://d1qx31qr3h6wln.cloudfront.net/publications/Akenine-Moller2021LOD.pdf "Open file in new window")85.82 MB