Custom Vulkan Engine to Render Black Holes in Real Time Using Ray-Marching

Meseguer Orrit, Roger

Custom Vulkan Engine to Render Black Holes in Real Time Using Ray-Marching

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Citation

Meseguer Orrit, R. Custom Vulkan Engine to Render Black Holes in Real Time Using Ray-Marching. 2023. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58032

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Abstract

This report deals with the Narwhal Engine: an interactive Vulkan-based graphics engine we developed that renders black holes in real time. Our engine is focused on rendering Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes, which are the simplest types without any charge. We adapted an already existing Unity black hole renderer and ported it over to Vulkan. Our implementation improves on the original and manages to render a frame over 15 times faster. It also adds interactivity to the original implementation as it allows users to modify the black hole and camera parameters and have those changes instantly reflected. The visualisation shows different elements of the black hole such as the accretion disk, the Einstein ring or the photon sphere.