Real-time Depth of Field with Realistic Bokeh : with a Focus on Computer Games

Sammanfattning: Depth of field is a naturally occurring effect in lenses describing the distance between theclosest and furthest object that appears in focus. The effect is commonly used in film andphotography to direct a viewers focus, give a scene more complexity, or to improve aes-thetics. In computer graphics, the same effect is possible, but since there are no naturaloccurrences of lenses in the virtual world, other ways are needed to achieve it. There aremany different approaches to simulate depth of field, but not all are suited for real-time usein computer games. In this thesis, multiple methods are explored and compared to achievedepth of field in real-time with a focus on computer games. The aspect of bokeh is alsocrucial when considering depth of field, so during the thesis, a method to simulate a bokeheffect similar to reality is explored. Three different methods based on the same approachwas implemented to research this subject, and their time and memory complexity weremeasured. A questionnaire was performed to measure the quality of the different meth-ods. The result is three similar methods, but with noticeable differences in both quality andperformance. The results give the reader an overview of different methods and directionsfor implementing it on their own, based on which requirements suits them.