The RADIANCE Lighting Simulation and Rendering System

Gregory J. Ward / GJWard@lbl.gov

ABSTRACT

1. Introduction

2. System Design Goals

2.1 Ensure Accurate Calculation of Luminance

2.2 Model Both Electric Light and Daylight

2.3 Support a Variety of Reflectance Models

2.4 Support Complicated Geometry

2.5 Take Unmodified Input from CAD Systems

3. Approach

We have outlined the goals for our rendering system and linked them back to the three key challenges of accuracy, generality and practicality. Let us now explore some of the techniques we have found helpful in meeting these goals and challenges.

We start with a basic description of the problem we are solving and how we go about solving it in section 3.1, followed by specific solution techniques in sections 3.2 to 3.5. Sections 3.6 to 3.9 present some important optimizations, and section 3.10 describes the overall implementation and use of the system.

3.1 Hybrid Deterministic/Stochastic Ray Tracing

3.2 Cached Indirect Irradiances for Diffuse Interreflection

3.3 Adaptive Sampling of Light Sources

3.4 Automatic Preprocessing of "Virtual" Light Sources

3.5 User-directed Preprocessing of "Secondary" Sources

3.6 Hierarchical Octrees for Spatial Subdivision

3.7 Patterns and Textures

3.8 Parallel Processing

3.9 Animation

3.10 Implementation Issues

4. Applications and Results

4.1 Electric Lighting

4.2 Daylighting

5. Conclusion

6. Acknowledgements

7. Software Availability

8. Bibliography

9. Appendix