Abstract

The modern realistic computer graphics is based on physically correct lighting simulation. One of the main and computationally difficult problems is the calculation of light transport or global illumination, i.e. the distribution of light in a virtual scene taking into account multiple reflections, light scattering and various interactions of light with the scene objects. This problem is studied in hundreds of books and papers. They describe dozens of computational methods and their modifications. Our survey not only lists and briefly describes them but also gives some kind of a “map” of existing works that helps the reader to find one’s bearings, understand the advantages and drawbacks of these methods and thus select an appropriate basic approach. Special attention is paid to such characteristics of the methods as their robustness and universality with respect to models, the clarity of their verification, the possibility of efficient implementation on GPUs and the constraints imposed on the scene or illumination phenomena. In contrast to existing surveys, we try to analyze not only the efficiency of the methods but their limitations and the complexity of software implementation as well. In addition, the results of the authors' own numerical experiments that illustrate some of our conclusions are presented.

中文翻译：

---

逼真渲染中的光传输：最先进的模拟方法

摘要

现代逼真的计算机图形基于物理上正确的照明模拟。主要的计算难题之一是光传输或全局照明的计算，即考虑到多次反射、光散射和光与场景对象的各种相互作用的虚拟场景中的光分布。这个问题在数百本书和论文中都有研究。他们描述了数十种计算方法及其修改。我们的调查不仅列出并简要描述了它们，还提供了某种现有作品的“地图”，帮助读者找到自己的方向，了解这些方法的优缺点，从而选择合适的基本方法。特别注意这些方法的特性，例如它们在模型方面的鲁棒性和通用性、验证的清晰度、在 GPU 上有效实现的可能性以及对场景或照明现象施加的约束。与现有调查相比，我们不仅尝试分析方法的效率，还尝试分析它们的局限性和软件实现的复杂性。此外，作者自己的数值实验结果也说明了我们的一些结论。我们不仅尝试分析方法的效率，还尝试分析它们的局限性和软件实现的复杂性。此外，作者自己的数值实验结果也说明了我们的一些结论。我们不仅尝试分析方法的效率，还尝试分析它们的局限性和软件实现的复杂性。此外，作者自己的数值实验结果也说明了我们的一些结论。