5
Realistic visualization
To improve on the rendering approach described in chapter 4 the first technique
that comes to mind is ray tracing. There are other techniques for generating
high-quality synthetic images but they will not be discussed here. Ray tracing
may be slow but it does give superb, almost photographic quality, images and
better algorithms are being developed all the time, so that under certain condi-
tions it is even possible to achieve real-time ray tracing. There are many books
that describe the th eor y of ray tracing in detail. One of the most cited books
that comprehen s ively examines the physics of the rendering process is Physically
Based Rendering From Theory to Implementation [70]. Watt [88] in chapters 7
and 8 covers all th ...