FIRE-3DV: Framework-Independent Rendering Engine for 3D Graphics using Vulkan

Interactive dynamic simulators are an accelerator for developing novel robotic control algorithms and complex systems involving humans and robots. In user training and synthetic data generation applications, high-fidelity visualizations from the simulation are essential. Yet, robotic simulators often limit their rendering algorithms to preserve real-time interaction with the simulation. Advancements in Graphics Processing Units (GPU) enable improved visualization without compromising performance. However, these advancements cannot be fully leveraged in simulation frameworks that use legacy graphics application programming interfaces (API) to interface with the GPU. This paper presents a performance-focused and lightweight rendering engine supporting the modern Vulkan graphics API that can be easily integrated with other simulation frameworks to enhance visualizations. To illustrate the proposed method, our engine is used to modernize the legacy rendering pipeline of the Asynchronous Multi-Body Framework (AMBF), a dynamic simulation framework used extensively for interactive robotics simulation development. This new rendering engine implements graphical features such as physically based rendering (PBR), anti-aliasing, and ray-traced shadows, significantly improving the image fidelity of AMBF. Computational experiments show that the engine can render a simulated scene with over seven million triangles while maintaining GPU computation times within two milliseconds.