Summary
Some computer graphics applications, such as architectural design, generate visually realistic images of computer models. This is accomplished by either explicitly or implicitly solving the light transport equations. Accurate solutions involve high-dimensional equations, and Monte Carlo (MC) techniques are used with an emphasis on importance sampling rather than stratification. For many applications, approximate solutions are adequate, and the dimensionality of the problem can be reduced. In these cases, the distribution of samples is important, and quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods are often used. It is still unknown what sampling schemes are best for these lower dimensional graphics problems, or what “best” even means in this case. This paper reviews the work in MC and QMC computer graphics, and poses some open problems in the field.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
A. Appel. Some techniques for shading machine rendering of solids. In Proceedings of the AFIPS 1968 Spring Joint Computer Conference, volume 32, pages 37–45, 1968.
J. Arvo. Stratified sampling of 2-manifolds. In SIGGRAPH Course: State of the Art in Monte Carlo Ray Tracing for Realistic Image Synthesis, 2001.
S. Boulos, D. Edwards, J. D. Lacewell, J. Kautz, I. Wald, and P. Shirley. Packet-based whitted and distribution ray tracing. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface, 2007.
P. Christensen. Adjoints and importance in rendering: an overview. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 9(3):329–340,2003.
R. Cook. Stochastic sampling in computer graphics. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 5(1):51–72, 1986.
R. Cook, T. Porter, and L. Carpenter. Distributed ray tracing. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 165–174, 1984.
K. Chiu, P. Shirley, and C. Wang. Multi-jittered sampling. In Graphics gems IV, pages 370–374. Academic Press Professional, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA, 1994.
D. Cline, J. Talbot, and P. Egbert. Energy redistribution path tracing. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 1186–1195, 2005.
P. Dutre, K. Bala, and P. Bekaert. Advanced Global Illumination. A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, Massachusetts, USA, second edition, 2006.
D. Dobkin, D. Eppstein, and D. Mitchell. Computing the discrepancy with applications to supersampling patterns. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 15(4):354–376, October 1996.
D. Dobkin and D. Mitchell. Random-edge discrepancy of supersampling patterns. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface, pages 62–69, May 1993.
H. Faure. Good permutations for extreme discrepancy. J. Number Theory, 42:47–56, 1992.
A. Glassner. A model for fluorescence and phospherescence. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, pages 57–68, 1994.
J. Gondek, G. Meyer, and J. Newman. Wavelength dependent reflectance functions. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 213–220, 1994.
D. Greenberg, K. Torrance, P. Shirley, J. Arvo, J. Ferwerda, S. Pattanaik, E. Lafortune, B. Walter, S. Foo, and B. Trumbore. A framework for realistic image synthesis. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 477–494, 1997.
S. Heinrich and A. Keller. Quasi-Monte Carlo methods in computer graphics, Part I: The QMC-Buffer. Technical Report 242/94, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany, 1994.
S. Heinrich and A. Keller. Quasi-Monte Carlo methods in computer graphics, Part II: The radiance equation. Technical Report 243/94, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany, 1994.
H. Wann Jensen. Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon Mapping. A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, Massachusetts, USA, 2001.
H. Wann Jensen, S. Marschner, M. Levoy, and P. Hanrahan. A practical model for subsurface light transport. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 511–518, 2001.
D. Kirk and J. Arvo. Unbiased variance reduction for global illumination. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, 1991.
A. Keller. Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods for Photorealistic Image Synthesis. Ph.D. thesis, Shaker Verlag Aachen, 1998.
A. Keller. Strictly deterministic sampling methods in computer graphics. In SIGGRAPH Course: Monte Carlo Ray Tracing, 2003.
A. Keller. Stratification by rank-1 lattices. In Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods 2002, pages 299–313, 2004.
A. Keller. Myths of computer graphics. In Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods 2004, pages 217–244, 2006.
A. Keller and W. Heidrich. Interleaved sampling. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, 2001.
T. Kollig and A. Keller. Efficient bidirectional path tracing by randomized Quasi-Monte Carlo integration. In Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods 2000, pages 290–305, 2002.
T. Kollig and A. Keller. Illumination in the presence of weak singularities. In Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods 2004, pages 245–257, 2006.
C. Kolb, D. Mitchell, and P. Hanrahan. A realistic camera model for computer graphics. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 317–324, 1995.
C. Kelemen, L. Szirmay-Kalos, G. Antal, and F. Csonka. A simple and robust mutation strategy for the Metropolis light transport algorithm. Computer Graphics Forum, 21(3):1–10, 2002.
E. Lafortune and Y. Willems. Bi-directional path tracing. In Proceedings of Compugraphics, pages 145–153, 1993.
R. Morley, S. Boulos, J. Johnson, D. Edwards, P. Shirley, M. Ashikhmin, and S. Premože. Image synthesis using adjoint photons. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface, pages 179–186, 2006.
D. Mitchell. Spectrally optimal sampling for distribution ray tracing. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 157–164, 1991.
D. Mitchell. Ray tracing and irregularities of distribution. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, pages 61–70, 1992.
D. Mitchell. Quasirandom techniques. In SIGGRAPH Course: State of the art in Monte Carlo ray tracing for realistic image synthesis, 2001.
M. Mortenson. Geometric modeling. Industrial Press, New York, NY, USA, third edition, 2007.
R. Ohbuchi and M. Aono. Quasi-Monte Carlo rendering with adaptive sampling. Technical Report RT0167, IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory, November 1996.
S. Pattanaik. Computational Methods for Global Illumination and Visualisation of Complex 3D Environments. PhD thesis, Birla Inst. of Technology & Science, Pilani, India, 1993.
M. Pharr and G. Humphreys. Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Fransisco, California, USA, 2004.
M. Pauly, T. Kollig, and A. Keller. Metropolis light transport for participating media. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, 2000.
E. Reinhard, G. Ward, S. Pattanaik, and P. Debevec. High Dynamic Range Imaging: Acquisition, Display and Image-Based Lighting. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco, CA, USA, 2005.
P. Shirley, M. Ashikhmin, M. Gleicher, S. Marschner, E. Reinhard, K. Sung, W. Thompson, and P. Willemsen. Fundamentals of Computer Graphics. A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, Massachusetts, USA, second edition, 2005.
P. Shirley and K. Chiu. A low distortion map between disk and square. journal of graphics tools, 2(3):45–52, 1997.
C. Schlick. An adaptive sampling technique for multidimensional ray tracing. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, pages 48–56, 1991.
P. Shirley. Discrepancy as a quality measure for sample distributions. In Proceedings of EUROGRAPHICS, pages 183–194, 1991.
L. Szirmay-Kalos, B. Balazs, and M. Sbert. Metropolis iteration. In Proceedings of WSSG, 2004.
L. Szirmay-Kalos and W. Purgathofer. Analysis of the Quasi-Monte Carlo integration of the rendering equation. Technical Report TR-186-2-98-22, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria, 1998.
B. Smits and G. Meyer. Newton's colors: simulating interference phenomena in realistic image synthesis. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, pages 185–194, 1990.
P. Shirley, K. Sung, and W. Brown. A ray tracing framework for global illumination systems. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface, pages 117–128, 1991.
J. Stam. Diffraction shaders. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 101–110, 1999.
P. Shirley and C. Wang. Direct lighting calculation by Monte Carlo integration. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, 1991.
J. Talbot. Importance resampling for global illumination. Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA, 2005.
E. Veach. Robust Monte Carlo Methods for Light Transport Simulation. PhD thesis, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA, 1997.
E. Veach and L. Guibas. Bidirectional estimators for light transport. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS Rendering Workshop, pages 147–162, 1994.
E. Veach and L. Guibas. Metropolis light transport. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, pages 65–76, 1997.
B. Walter, P. Hubbard, P. Shirley, and D. Greenberg. Global illumination using local linear density estimation. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 16(3):217–259, 1997.
A. Wilkie, R. Tobler, and W. Purgathofer. Combined rendering of polarization and fluorescence effects. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS rendering workshop, pages 197–204, 2001.
A. Wilkie, R. Tobler, C. Ulbricht, G. Zotti, and W. Purgathofer. An analytical model for skylight polarisation. In Proceedings of the EUROGRAPHICS Symposium on Rendering, pages 387–399, 2004.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Shirley, P., Edwards, D., Boulos, S. (2008). Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods for Computer Graphics. In: Keller, A., Heinrich, S., Niederreiter, H. (eds) Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods 2006. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74496-2_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74496-2_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74495-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74496-2
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)