This book provides a fundamental understanding of global illumination algorithms. It discusses a broad class of algorithms for realistic image synthesis and introduces a theoretical basis for the algorithms presented. Topics include: physics of light transport, Monte Carlo methods, general strategies for solving the rendering equation, stochastic path-tracing algorithms such as ray tracing and light tracing, stochastic radiosity including photon density estimation and hierarchical Monte Carlo radiosity, hybrid algorithms, metropolis light transport, irradiance caching, photon mapping and instant radiosity, beyond the rendering equation, image display and human perception. If you want to design and implement a global illumination rendering system or need to use and modify an existing system for your specific purpose, this book will give you the tools and the understanding to do so.

Irradiance caching is a ray tracing-based technique for computing global illumination on diffuse surfaces. Specifically, it addresses the computation of indirect illumination bouncing off one diffuse object onto another. The sole purpose of irradiance caching is to make this computation reasonably fast. The main idea is to perform the indirect illumination sampling only at a selected set of locations in the scene, store the results in a cache, and reuse the cached value at other points through fast interpolation. This book is for anyone interested in making a production-ready implementation of irradiance caching that reliably renders artifact-free images. Since its invention 20 years ago, the irradiance caching algorithm has been successfully used to accelerate global illumination computation in the Radiance lighting simulation system. Its widespread use had to wait until computers became fast enough to consider global illumination in film production rendering. Since then, its use is ubiquitous. Virtually all commercial and open-source rendering software base the global illumination computation upon irradiance caching. Although elegant and powerful, the algorithm in its basic form often fails to produce artifact-free mages. Unfortunately, practical information on implementing the algorithm is scarce. The main objective of this book is to show the irradiance caching algorithm along with all the details and tricks upon which the success of its practical implementation is dependent. In addition, we discuss some extensions of the basic algorithm, such as a GPU implementation for interactive global illumination computation and temporal caching that exploits temporal coherence to suppress flickering in animations. Our goal is to show the material without being overly theoretical. However, the reader should have some basic understanding of rendering concepts, ray tracing in particular. Familiarity with global illumination is useful but not necessary to read this book. Table of Contents: Introduction to Ray Tracing and Global Illumination / Irradiance Caching Core / Practical Rendering with Irradiance Caching / Irradiance Caching in a Complete Global Illumination / Irradiance Caching on Graphics Hardware / Temporal Irradiance Caching

This book presents techniques to render photo-realistic images by programming the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). We discuss effects such as mirror reflections, refractions, caustics, diffuse or glossy indirect illumination, radiosity, single or multiple scattering in participating media, tone reproduction, glow, and depth of field. The book targets game developers, graphics programmers, and also students with some basic understanding of computer graphics algorithms, rendering APIs like Direct3D or OpenGL, and shader programming. In order to make the book self-contained, the most important concepts of local illumination and global illumination rendering, graphics hardware, and Direct3D/HLSL programming are reviewed in the first chapters. After these introductory chapters we warm up with simple methods including shadow and environment mapping, then we move on toward advanced concepts aiming at global illumination rendering. Since it would have been impossible to give a rigorous review of all approaches proposed in this field, we go into the details of just a few methods solving each particular global illumination effect. However, a short discussion of the state of the art and links to the bibliography are also provided to refer the interested reader to techniques that are not detailed in this book. The implementation of the selected methods is also presented in HLSL, and we discuss their observed performance, merits, and disadvantages. In the last chapter, we also review how these techniques can be integrated in an advanced game engine and present case studies of their exploitation in games. Having gone through this book, the reader will have an overview of the state of the art, will be able to apply and improve these techniques, and most importantly, will be capable of developing brand new GPU algorithms. Table of Contents: Global Illumintation Rendering / Local Illumination Rendering Pipeline of GPUs / Programming and Controlling GPUs / Simple Improvements of the Local Illumination Model / Ray Casting on the GPU / Specular Effects with Rasterization / Diffuse and Glossy Indirect Illumination / Pre-computation Aided Global Illumination / Participating Media Rendering / Fake Global Illumination / Postprocessing Effects / Integrating GI Effects in Games and Virtual Reality Systems / Bibliography

Beginning WebGL for HTML5 gets you rapidly up to speed with WebGL, a powerful new graphics language within the browser. You'll render realistic scenes with advanced lighting models, shadows, blending and textures. You'll also use mathematics to model fractals and particle systems. Going beyond that, Beginning WebGL for HTML5 presents advanced vertex and fragment shader usage for creating stunning, top-end results. You'll benefit from using modern frameworks to rapidly develop complex scenes, and make use of many tools to help improve rendering performance and debugging. Beginning WebGL for HTML5 builds your critical WebGL development skills while being enjoyable at each step of the way. Quickly get up to speed with WebGL Render realistic scenes Work faster with frameworks Improve rendering performance

The development of new technologies still accelerates. As a result the requirement of easy access to high quality information is essential in modern scientific society. We believe that new cloud-based online system will replace the old system of books and magazines in the future. This is mainly because contemporary system of journal and conference publications appears to be outdated, especially in such domains as computer science, because process of publishing of an article takes too much time. In this book a new approach of sharing knowledge is proposed. The main idea behind this new approach is to take advantage of collaboration techniques used in industry to share the knowledge and build teams which work on the same subject at different locations. This will allow to accelerate the exchange of information between scientists and allow to build global teams of researchers who deal with the same scientific subjects. Furthermore, an easy access to structured knowledge will facilitate cross domain cooperation. This book describes the concept of a cross-domain platform which can be used for scientific cooperation. It also familiarizes readers with new concepts and technologies which are used in the platform and introduces the first projects which are developed using this technology. It is expected to be of special interest to researchers and professionals in computer science and mechanics.

This book presents efficient visualization techniques, a prerequisite for the interactive exploration of complex data sets. High performance is demonstrated as a process of devising algorithms for the fast graphics processing units (GPUs) of modern graphics hardware. Coverage includes parallelization on cluster computers with several GPUs, adaptive rendering methods, and non-photorealistic rendering techniques for visualization.

Based on course notes of SIGGRAPH course teaching techniques for real-time rendering of volumetric data and effects; covers both applications in scientific visualization and real-time rendering. Starts with the basics (texture-based ray casting) and then improves and expands the algorithms incrementally. Book includes source code, algorithms, diagr

Are games worthy of academic attention? Can they be used effectively in the classroom, in the research laboratory, as an innovative design tool, as a persuasive political weapon? Game Mods: Design Theory and Criticism aims to answer these and more questions. It features chapters by authors chosen from around the world, representing fields as diverse as architecture, ethnography, puppetry, cultural studies, music education, interaction design and industrial design. How can we design, play with and reflect on the contribution of game mods, related tools and techniques, to both game studies and to society as a whole?

Thoroughly revised, this third edition focuses on modern techniques used to generate synthetic three-dimensional images in a fraction of a second. With the advent of programmable shaders, a wide variety of new algorithms have arisen and evolved over the past few years. This edition discusses current, practical rendering methods used in games and other applications. It also presents a solid theoretical framework and relevant mathematics for the field of interactive computer graphics, all in an approachable style. The authors have made the figures used in the book available for download for fair use.:Download Figures. Reviews Rendering has been a required reference for professional graphics practitioners for nearly a decade. This latest edition is as relevant as ever, covering topics from essential mathematical foundations to advanced techniques used by today’s cutting edge games. -- Gabe Newell, President, Valve, May 2008 Rendering ... has been completely revised and revamped for its updated third edition, which focuses on modern techniques used to generate three-dimensional images in a fraction of the time old processes took. From practical rendering for games to math and details for better interactive applications, it's not to be missed. -- The Bookwatch, November 2008 You'll get brilliantly lucid explanations of concepts like vertex morphing and variance shadow mapping—as well as a new respect for the incredible craftsmanship that goes into today's PC games. -- Logan Decker, PC Gamer Magazine , February 2009