A progressive multi-pass method for global illumination

Shenchang Eric Chen, Holly E. Rushmeier, Gavin Miller, Douglass Turner
1991 Proceedings of the 18th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH '91  
Engineering ABSTRACT A new progressive global illumination method is presented which produces approximate images quickly, and then continues to systematically produce more accurate images. The method combines the existing methods of progressive refinement radiosity, Monte Carlo path tracing and light ray tracing. The method does not place any limitation on surface properties such as ideal Lambertian or mirror-like. To increase efficiency and accuracy, the new concepts of light source
more » ... ation, caustics reconstruction, Monte Carlo path tracing with a radiosity preprocess and an interruptible radiosity solution are introduced. The method presents the user with most useful information about the scene as early as possible by reorganizing the method into a radiosity pass, a high frequency refinement pass and a low frequency refinement pass. The implementation of the method is demonstrated, and sample images are presented.
doi:10.1145/122718.122737 dblp:conf/siggraph/ChenRMT91 fatcat:75ikrkixavcundky5j626ofm5a