Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, 5th Edition

14 Physics-Based Rendering

DOI: 10.1201/9781003050339-14

While all rendering is to some extent or another “physics-based,” the term “physics-based” implies in practice that we will adhere strictly to physics models rather than being “phenomenological,” which captures subjective perceptual features heuristically, such as an empirical formula that puts a highlight in the “right” place. This chapter covers physics-based rendering at a high level, defines the units and terms used in the area, and provides a brute force “path tracing” algorithm that can produce very accurate images very slowly. We do not delve into the details of the many rendering algorithms out there, but almost all of them can be viewed as improvements only over the brute ...