Beyond Ray Tracing

Advanced Graphics Course

02 May 2002 – Saarland University

Philippe Bekaert
Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics
Office 223 Phone 0681 9325 423
 Overview

l Stochastic ray tracing

l Light path tracing
l Bi-directional path tracing
l Photon mapping
l Instant radiosity
 A Duerer
16th c.

Computer Graphics
Nowadays

Radiance = ??

Ph. Dutre
 Global Illumination
θ θ
L Le Lr
θ

x x
= + x
Self emitted
Radiance Reflected radiance
radiance

⇒ Rendering Equation (Kajiya ‘86)

L( x → θ) = L e (x → θ) + ∫ dωψ L( x ← ψ )f r (θ, ψ ) cos ψ

Ω

F.Suykens
Recursive MC Integration of
R.E. = Stochactic Ray Tracing
l Trace path from the
eye
l Connect each eye
path vertex with a
light source
 (arnold renderer)
M.Fajardo
M.Fajardo
M.Fajardo
 Real World Lighting (intermezzo)

1) Photographs of mirror sphere at varying exposure times

3) Use as light source in Monte

Carlo rendering algorithm

2) High-dynamic
range environment
map
M.Fajardo
M.Fajardo
 Stochastic RT Works Well,
BUT … not always …

No caustics
100 paths per pixel is normal
H.W.Jensen
Light Particle Tracing

l Trace path from a

light source
l Connect each light
path vertex with the
eye.
l Dual of stochastic
ray tracing.
Density Estimation
Two passes:
1. Shoot paths from
light sources.
Summarize hit
points in data
structure.
2. Retrieve
illumination at
visible points by
querying data
structure.
Histogram method
l Break surfaces in small elements.
Count photons hitting each element:
Histogram method
Light Path Tracing =
Histogram Method on Surface
projected in every image pixel
l View dependent
l Area of surface depends on
§ Virtual screen size (field of view, aspect ratio)
§ Image resolution
§ Distance to surface
§ Surface orientation w.r.t. camera
 Path Tracing Particle Tracing
(oops, but the caustic
is there!)
H.W.Jensen
 Path Tracing and Particle
Tracing are Complementary!!

Path tracing Particle tracing Combined

How to combine them????

F. Suykens
 Multiple Importance Sampling
l First the easy thing: direct illumination

E.Veach
Light sampling = LT: BRDF sampling = RT:
Good for small light Good for large light
or diffuse-like surface or more mirror-like surface
E.Veach
 Do both, and add
with appropriate weights

E.Veach
E.Veach

How to generalize?

N+1 alternatives for paths with N vertices including

Light and Eye
E.Veach

T=0 S=0

not weighted
BPT: Path sampling

F.Suykens
l Connect light sub-paths with eye sub -paths +
weight taking into account the probability of
making the same paths by all possible other
combinations.
E.Veach

weighted
E.Veach

Path Tracing Bi-directional Path Tracing

(same computation time)
E.Veach

(With serious optimizations)

E.Veach
E.Veach

Bi-directional Path Tracing is the Most General

And Robust Global Illumination Algorithms To
Date, but Rendering Times can be Enormous!
 Photon Mapping = Nearest
Neighbor Density Estimation

Photons are stored in

Kd-tree for efficient nearest
Neighbor lookup.
H.W.Jensen
 Using the Photon Map in Ray Tracing

1) Eye ray 2) Shadow ray for direct

illumination

3) Query photon map for 4) Reflected ray for

indirect diffuse illumination Specular illumination
H.W.Jensen
 correct

100 nearest neighbors 500 nearest neighbors

H.W.Jensen (oops)
 Photon map improvements
(there are plenty!!)
1) Use photon map only after
One diffuse or glossy bounce

2) Store caustic photons in

separate photon map:

H.W.Jensen
 Direct PM visualization Indirect PM visualization

Reflection caustics
H.W.Jensen
H.W.Jensen
H.W.Jensen
 Photons are stored
Independently from
Geometry, allowing
Procedural geometry

H.W.Jensen
 Participating media
Can be rendered
Efficiently using
Volume PMAP.

H.W.Jensen
 Rendering times in the order of minutes on a PC.
Fedkow et al.
 Photon mapping is probably one of the most
Practical global illumination methods nowadays.
For interactive global illumination however, we
Believe more in the next algorithm …

H.W.Jensen
 “Instant radiosity”

Use particle hit points as point light sources in

OpenGL or in fast ray tracer
 A Keller

N=#paths, M=#points
A Keller
 Interactive!!

A.Keller
Further Reading and REFs.
l Path Tracing:
P. Shirley,”Realistic Ray Tracing”, A.K.Peters, 2001
SIGGRAPH 2001 “State of the art in Monte Carlo ray tracing” course
(includes description of Arnold renderer)
l Light tracing and Bi- directional path tracing:
E. Veach, “Robust Monte Carlo Methods for Light Transport Simulation”,
PhD thesis Standford univ. 1997.
l Photon mapping:
H.W.Jensen, “Realistic Image Synthesis using Photon Mapping”,
A.K.Peters, 2001
SIGGRAPH 2001 “Photon mapping” course
l Instant Radiosity:
A.Keller, “Instant Radiosity”, SIGGRAPH 1997
l General:
SIGGRAPH 2001 “Advanced Global Illumination” course
my current work:
 Dense occlusion problems
Bi-directional PT Instant Radiosity
D.E. (e.g. PMAP) has no problem with
dense occlusion itself, but needs final
gather = ray tracing = problem

PMAP without final gather

Ray-traced IR fails for non-
diffuse light scattering.
 Subsurface scattering

Commonly used BRDF Taking into account

Model: no translucency. subsurface scattering
reproduces translucency
Translucent
materials

Philippe
Bekaert
MPI 223