ABSTRACT
On the surface, shadow determination appears to be a simple task to achieve. However, as evidenced by the enormous set of research literature today and the trend that seems to continue, it is much more complex when the algorithms need to be robust, of good quality, and of good performance. We also doubt if there will ever be a single, feasible approach that unifies and serves all shadow needs. We strongly suspect that improvements will mostly come in the form of extensions to the three major shadow approaches-shadowvolumes, shadowdepthmaps, and ray tracing.
