Product Description

The creation of realistic three-dimensional images is central to computer graphics. Photon mapping, an extension of ray tracing, makes it possible to efficiently simulate global illumination in complex scenes. Photon mapping can simulate caustics (focused light, such as shimmering waves at the bottom of a swimming pool), diffuse inter-reflections (for example, the bleeding of coloured light from a red wall onto a white floor, giving the floor a reddish tint), and participating media (such as clouds or smoke). This book provides a guide to photon mapping, offering both the theory and the practical insight necessary to implement photon mapping and simulate all types of direct and indirect illumination efficiently.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #290784 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 200 pages

Customer Reviews

Practical guide to Photon Mapping
As the title promises, this book is about the Photon Mapping method for realistic image synthesis. The book covers both transparent and participating media (smoke, fog, etc.). It describes the photon mapping algorithm in a very practical fashion and also presents source code for a simple ray tracer based on the algorithm. It should be perfectly feasible to implement the algorithm after reading this book, even if you're not already familiar with the theory of global illumination but do have a background in computer graphics programming.

The first part of the book, the introduction to the mathematical foundations of ray-optics based rendering, i.e. radiance, radiosity, solid angles, the rendering and reflectance equations and the like, is not the best reference to the subject; if you're interested in the theory and not the photon mapping algorithm, this book is not for you.

On the other hand, if you want to spice up your ray tracer with global illumination effects, this book is a must have.

Does what is says on the tin...
This is what all technical books should be. It just explains how photon mapping works, and how to implement it in a simple step by step fashion. Occasionally there's some nasty maths, but just skip over it, and you'll find a simple readable explanation instead (if thats what you prefer).

Having read this you can add GI to a ray tracer in a matter of hours (OK a few days to get it working fully). It really is that easy. The trick is that Jensen isn't out to make himself, or his technique look clever - instead he makes his technique look simple and obvious, which deserves much more respect.

Only downside is that the code for KD-tree's which is included in the appendix isn't easily available for download, but if you do a bit of searching you can find it.