Abstract
Procedural noise functions are widely used in Computer Graphics, from off-line
rendering in movie production to interactive video games. The ability to add
complex and intricate details at low memory and authoring cost is one of its
main attractions. This state-of-the-art report is motivated by the inherent
importance of noise in graphics, the widespread use of noise in industry, and
the fact that many recent research developments justify the need for an
up-to-date survey. Our goal is to provide both a valuable entry point into the
field of procedural noise functions, as well as a comprehensive view of the
field to the informed reader. In this report, we cover procedural noise
functions in all their aspects. We outline recent advances in research on this
topic, discussing and comparing recent and well established methods. We first
formally define procedural noise functions based on stochastic processes and
then classify and review existing procedural noise functions. We discuss how
procedural noise functions are used for modeling and how they are applied on
surfaces. We then introduce analysis tools and apply them to evaluate and
compare the major approaches to noise generation. We finally identify several
directions for future work.
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