Chapter 29. Light Transport

29.1. Introduction

In this chapter we develop the rendering equation, which characterizes the light transport in a scene. We do this first for a scene in which there is no transmissive scattering, only reflection, and then generalize to handle transmission as well. In all but the simplest cases, the rendering equation is impossible to solve exactly. Approximation methods are therefore essential tools. The dominant approximation method involves estimating certain integrals by so-called Monte Carlo integration, that is, randomized integration algorithms, which we discuss in the next chapter. To assist with understanding the convergence properties of such algorithms, we can consider various kinds of light transport, some ...

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