Registration and course data is available on the TISS site.
Properties
Semester hours: 2.0
Credits: 3.0
Type: VU Lecture and Exercise
Aim of course
This course aims to give an overview of basic and state-of-the-art methods of rendering. Offline methods such as ray and path tracing, photon mapping and many other algorithms are introduced and various refinement are explained. The basics of the involved physics, such as geometric optics, surface and media interaction with light and camera models are outlined. The apparatus of Monte Carlo methods is introduced which is heavily used in several algorithms and its refinement in the form of stratified sampling and the Metropolis-Hastings method is explained.
At the end of the course students should be familiar with common techniques in rendering and find their way around the current state-of-the-art of the field. Furthermore the exercises should deepen the attendees' understanding of the basic principles of light transport and enable them to write a simple rendering program themselves.
Subject of course
Rendering theory Basic optics, rendering equation, filtering
Rendering algorithms Ray tracing, radiosity, (bi-directional) path tracing, Metropolis light transport, precomputed radiance transfer, (stochastic progressive) photon mapping, irradiance caching, path space regularization, vertex connection and merging
Participating media Scattering, volumetric photon mapping, photon beams
Higher dimensional effects Motion blur, depth of field
Camera models Pinhole, Perspective, Orthographic
Post processing HDR, tone mapping
Subject to refinement.
Additional Information
Literature:
Physically Based Rendering, Second Edition: From Theory To Implementation, M. Pharr and G. Humphreys, Homepage, ACM The main book of the lecture (referred to as PBRT).
Course on Monte-Carlo Methods in Global Illumination, L. Szirmay-Kalos, Link A free course scriptum that gives a detailed explanation of the mathematical foundations of Global Illumination.
Unit 1 - Introduction, Radiometry
PBRT, 5.4, 5.5
Radiometry, S. Marschner, Link Course notes in radiometry
A framework for realistic rendering, D. Greenberg, K. Torrance, P. Shirley, J. Arvo, J. A. Ferwerda, S. Pattanaik, E. P. F. Lafortune, B. Walter, S. Foo, B. Trimbone, in Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 97, Link Description of an early framework for realistic rendering
Unit 6 - Spatial Acceleration Structures, Filtering, Tone Mapping
PBRT, 4, 7
High Dynamic Range Imaging, E. Reinhard, W. Heidrich, P. Debevec, S. Pattanaik, G. Ward, K. Myszkowski , 2010, Homepage
References to various papers at the end of the presentation slides of unit 06.
Unit 02 - The Rendering Equation and Ray Tracing (Károly Zsolnai) - Update: the full unit is now uploaded. I have also added a video around slide 300 on why the gradient of the surface gives the normal. Update 2: the placement of R in the earlier slides.
Unit 03 - Global Illumination and Path Tracing (Károly Zsolnai) - Update: the full unit is now uploaded. Update2: a reference to the BRDF explorer program published by Walt Disney Animation Studios is added on slide 11. Try it!