60766: Student Computer Science or similar (f/m/x)

Area of research: Other,Diploma & Master Thesis Job description: In DLR’s Institute for Software Technology, an open source Virtual-Reality simulation of our Solar System is being developed. With sophisticated level-of-detail-algorithms, high resolution digital elevation models and satellite imagery, entire planets and space missions can be explored in real-time. Light and shadow play an important role in realistic space simulations. One approach of shadow computation are ‘cascaded shadow maps’. However, there are a lot of parameters which can be used to tweak the quality and efficiency of the shadow algorithm. Goal of this thesis is to develop heuristics for optimal parametrization of cascaded shadow maps for very huge outdoor scenes. In the scope of this thesis, a system shall be developed which takes several factors (such as user’s view direction, distance to the planet’s surface or the distance to the horizon) into account in order to automatically create an optimal parametrization of the algorithm. The impact of each parameter on the shadow quality and algorithm performance shall be discussed. Finally, tests and benchmarks shall prove the efficiency of the implementation. This research center is part of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. With more than 42,000 employees and an annual budget of over € 5 billion, the Helmholtz Association is Germany’s largest scientific organisation.
https://www.nature.com/naturecareers/job/60766-student-computer-science-or-similar-fmx-automatic-parametrization-of-cascaded-shadow-maps-for-terrain-visualizations-at-planetary-scale-german-aerospace-center-dlr-747730