Abstract

The slow render times of global illumination algorithms make them impractical in most commercial and academic settings. We propose a novel framework for calculating the computational complexity of global illumination algorithms and show that no other recent improvements have reduced this complexity. We further show that many algorithms use a tree as their rendering paradigm. We propose a new rendering algorithm, pipe casting, which calculates light paths using a graph instead of a tree. Pipe casting significantly reduces both computational complexity and actual render time of rendering. Using an L2 pixel-wise error comparison, on average our algorithm can render a variety of scenes at the same error as traditional algorithms but in about 50% of the time.

Degree

College and Department

Physical and Mathematical Sciences; Computer Science

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/