Radiosity Part I

Radiometry, Surfaces, and

Rendering
Alex Telea

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 Goal
• Investigate formally some methods for
physically-based realistic rendering
• Present a practical method for producing
highly realistic (and also physically correct)
images (renderings) of 3D worlds

• Tease people with lots of math stuff 

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First, let’s see some
EXAMPLES

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Realistic rendering: ‘Color bleeding’

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Example 1 of progressive rendering

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Example 2 of progressive rendering

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Example 3 of progressive rendering

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 Example of mesh refinement
solution (rendering)

refined mesh 8
Example 2 of mesh refinement
whole scene
mesh detail

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Combining rendering and textures

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Real photograph…

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…and the rendered scene

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Rendering of a complex scene…

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…and discrete meshing used for it

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Complex scene (50000..100000 polygons)

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Rendering with volumetric effects

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Is this rendered of real?

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 Outline
• Physically Based Rendering
• Mathematics of Radiosity
• Form Factors
• Solving the Matrix
• Meshing and Display

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 Radiometry
• Science of measuring light

• Analogous science called photometry is

based on human perception.

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 Radiometric Quantities
• Functions of wavelength, time, position,
direction, polarization.

g ( , t , r ,  ,  )

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 Wavelength
• Assume wavelengths independent
– No phosphorescence
– R, G, B components behave identically

g (t , r,  ,  )

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 Time
• Equilibrium states considered only
– Light travels fast…
– No luminescence


g (r,  ,  )

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 Polarization
• Ignore it
– Would likely need wave optics to simulate


g (r,  )

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 Result – five dimensions
• With little loss in usefulness
• Two quantities

r Position (3 components)
Direction (2 components)

g (r,  )
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 Radiant Energy - Q
• Fundamental quantity we start with
• Think of photon as carrying quantum of
energy (hc/ where c is speed of light and h
is Planck’s constant)
• Total energy, Q, is then energy of the total
number of photons.

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 Power - 
• Flow of energy (important for transport)
• Also called radiant flux.
• Energy per unit time (joules / s)
• Unit: Watt
  = dQ/dt

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 Radiant Flux Area Density
• We render stuff on surfaces, so we need
a measure for the energy arriving/leaving a
surface
leaving
d arriving
u
dA
dA
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 Irradiance
• Power per unit area incident on a surface.

E = d /dA
arriving
• Unit: Watt / m2

dA
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 Radiant Exitance
• Power per unit area leaving surface
• Also known as radiosity

B = d /dA leaving

• Same units as irradiance

• just direction changes.
dA
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What about a point light source?

Important for infinitesimal calculus !

point source area source(s)

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 Intensity
• Power per unit solid angle

d
I 
d
• Units – watts per steradian
• “Intensity” is heavily overloaded
• What is a solid angle?
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 Solid Angle
• Size of a patch, dA, is
dA  (r sin  d )(r d )
• Solid angle is
 dA
d  2
r
• Measured in
sterradians (sr)
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 Isotropic Point Source

d 
I 
d 4

• Irradiates equally in all directions

• Even distribution of power over sphere

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 Irradiance on Differential Area
• What is the irradiance of a differential area,
illuminated by a point source at xs, seen from a point
p?
accounts for
projected area
area point x
d  cos
EI  view
dA 4 x  x s 2

point p

light
• This is the “square law”
source xs

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 Projected Area
• Ap = A (N • V) = A cos 

V N
V

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 Radiance
• Power per unit projected area per unit solid
angle. d 
2
L 
dAp d
• Units – watts per steradian m2
• We have now introduced projected area, a
cosine term. d 2
L 
dA cos d
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 Why the Cosine Term?
• Foreshortening is by cosine of angle.
• Radiance gives energy by effective surface
area, as seen from the view direction

A cos


A 37
 Irradiance from Radiance

E   Lcos d


• just look at definitions of E and L…

• cos d is projection of a differential area

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 Reciprocity

• Radiance from dS to dR
d 
2
L  
dS d r
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• Radiance from dS to dR (l is distance)

d  2
L  
dS d r
d 2
Projected area L 
(dS cos  s )d r
d 2
Solid angle L
(dS cos s )(dR cos  r / l )
2

d 2
L
(dS cos  s / l 2 )(dR cos r )

d 2
L  
dR d S
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 Reciprocity

So we got:
d  2
d  2
L   , L  
dS d r dR d S
i.e. radiance from dS to dR = radiance from dR to dS
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 Another way of seeing this:


d1
dA1

d 2
dA2

Total flux leaving one side = flux arriving other side, so

 
L1d1dA1  L2 d 2 dA2
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 
d1
dA1

d 2
dA2

 
d1  dA2 / r 2 and d 2  dA1 / r 2

therefore

L1 (dA2 / r 2 ) dA1  L2 (dA1 / r 2 ) dA2

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 
d1
dA1

d 2
dA2

L1 (dA2 / r 2 ) dA1  L2 (dA1 / r 2 ) dA2

so
L1  L2

Radiance doesn’t change with distance!

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 Radiance as a unit of measure
• Radiance doesn’t change with distance
– Therefore it’s the quantity we want to measure
in a ray tracer.
• Radiance proportional to what a sensor
(camera, eye) measures.
– Therefore it’s what we want to output.

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 Radiometry Summary
• Energy photons…
• Power energy / time
• Irradiance and Radiosity power / area
• Intensity power / angle

• Radiance power / area*angle

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Radiometry describes light in itself

What about interaction of light

with objects?

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 Light-Surface Interaction
• Reflected radiance is proportional to
incoming flux and to irradiance (incident
power per unit area).

 
dLr ( r )  dE ( i )

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 Bidirectional Reflectance
Distribution Function (BRDF)

relates incoming and

outcoming radiances
at reflection


  Lr ( r )
f r (i   r )  
Li (i ) cos i di
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 BRDF Dimensionality
• Function of position, four angles (two
incident, two reflected),
• Material is usually considered uniform, so
position is ignored.
• If isotropic, one angle goes away.
• Result: 3 or 4 dimensional.

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 BRDF Properties
• Reciprocity (of incoming and outcoming
directions)
• Natural condition: material is ‘symmetric’
   
f r ( i   o )  f r ( o   i )

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 Lambertian (diffuse) Surfaces
diffuse BRDF

• BRDF is a constant. Lr ( r )  k E
• Independent of direction of incoming light.
• Radiosity over irradiance is constant.

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 Mirror (ideally specular)
Surfaces
• Reflection takes place in a plane
perpendicular to surface.
• Angle of reflectance = angle of incidence.
• BRDF modelled by delta functions.

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 Glossy (shiny) Surfaces
• Between lambertian and specular.

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 Complex BRDFs
• Combinations of the three

+ +

diffuse mirror glossy

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 The Rendering Equation
emitted
 
Lo (x,  o )  Le (x,  o ) 
reflected
outgoing    
 f r (x,  o ,  i ) Li (x,  i ) cos i d i


• “Essence” of physically-based rendering

• Basically is an energy balance equation
• Often approximated by splitting diffuse,
specular, and glossy (shiny) components
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 Transport of Energy
• Now we have a model of the light-surface
interaction (the ‘rendering equation’)
• How do we transfer energy from light
sources to all surfaces in a 3D scene?

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 Transport Approximations
• Classical ray tracing
– Direct lambertian
– Global specular
– View dependent
• Radiosity
– Global illumination between diffuse surfaces
– View independent

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 Next
• Formulation of the radiosity method
• Practical aspects for computing a solution
(i.e. ‘render’ a 3D scene)

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 References
• Chapter 2 (by Hanrahan) in Cohen and
Wallace, Radiosity and Realistic Image
Synthesis.
• Glassner, Principles of Digital Image
Synthesis, pp. 648 – 659 and Chapter 13.

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