Readings for CS348B: Image Synthesis Techniques

Papers and articles available on the web will not be handed out in class. Pointers to the online versions of papers are included by the reference. You are expected to download and print these papers yourselves. One reason for doing this is that many graphics papers contain pictures that do not reproduce well when copied. The ACM and IEEE Digital Libraries are now available online for Stanford students. They are a great resource: learn to use them.

Readings not available online will be handed out in class. They will also be available in the CS348B course handout cabinet in Gates Rm 377 (the copy room in the graphics wing 3B).

Hint: Reading the material before class will make the lectures much more understandable!

Mar 29 The Goals of Rendering

D. Greenberg, A framework for realistic image synthesis, CACM 42(8), pp. 44-53, Aug. 1999. (pdf)

Optional

D. Greenberg, K. Torrance, P. Shirley, J. Arvo, J. A. Ferwerda, S. pattanaik, E. P. F. Lafortune, B. Walter, S. Foo, B. Trimbone, A framework for realistic rendering, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 97 (Los Angelos, CA, August 3-9, 1997). In Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, 1997, ACM SIGGRAPH, pp. 477-494. (pdf)

Longer, more detailed and technical version of the CACM article.

Mar 31 Ray Tracing I: Basic Algorithm

A. Appel, Some techniques for the machine rendering of solids, Proc. of the Spring Joint Computer Conference, pp. 37-45, 1968.

R. A. Goldstein, R. Nagel, 3-D visual simulation, Simulation, 16(1), pp. 25-31, Jan. 1971.

T. Whitted, A improved illumination model for shaded display, CACM, 23(6), pp. 343-349, June 1980, (acm).

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering , Chapters 1-3 (Sec 3.7 is optional).

You've been ray tracing too long if ...

Optional

E. Haines, Essential ray tracing algorithms, In Glassner, An Introduction to Ray Tracing, pp. 33-78.

P. Hanrahan, A survey of ray-surface intersection algorithms, In Glassner, An Introduction to Ray Tracing, pp. 79-120.

T. Moller, B. Trumbore, Fast, minimum storage ray-triangle intersection, Journal of Graphics Tools, 2(1), pp. 21-28, 1997. (pdf).

Detailed explanation of a very fast ray-triangle intersection algorithm.

P. Hanrahan, Ray-triangle and ray-quadrilateral intersection in homogeneous coordinates, unpublished manuscript. (pdf)

An old technical note that I wrote in 1989 that describes how to do ray-triangle intersections using Plucker coordinates.

Apr 5 Ray Tracing II: Acceleration

J. Arvo, D. Kirk, A survey of ray tracing acceleration structures, In Glassner, An Introduction to Ray Tracing, pp. 201-262.

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, A Physically Based Rendering, Chapter 4.

Optional

J. Arvo, Ray tracing with meta-hierarchies, In SIGGRAPH 90 Advanced Topics in Ray Tracing Course Notes, 1990. (ps)

The Best Efficiency Scheme Homepage.

Comparison of many common acceleration data structures, including grids, hierarchical grids, adaptive grids, k-d trees, and oct-trees. A technical paper describing their results is available from this page.

Apr 7 Radiometry

P. Hanrahan, Rendering concepts, In Cohen and Wallace, Radiosity and Realistic Image Synthesis, pp. 13-40.

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, A Physically-Based Ray Tracer, Chapter 5, 13.

Optional

R. Barzel, Lighting controls for computer cinematography, Journal of Graphics Tools, 2(1), pp. 1-20, 1997. (jgt html, pdf)

Describes the PIXAR uberlight shader, as well as issues in controlling lighting in motion picture production.

J. Palmer, Radiometry and Photometry FAQ

References

R. McCluney, Introduction to Radiometry and Photometry, Artech House, Norword, MA, 1994.

Modern treatment of radiometry

P. Bouguer, Optical Treatise on The Gradation of Light, Translated with an introduction and notes by W. Middleton, University of Toronto Press, 1961.

J. H. Lambert, Photometry, Translated with an introductory monograph and notes by D. DiLaura, Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, 2001.

These last two famous books were written in 1760. Many of the current ideas about radiometry and photometry can be traced to Bouguer and Lambert. Lambert is famous for Lambert's Law; he also developed a formula for the irradiance due to a polygonal source. Bouguer is famous for introducing the idea of estimating radiant intensity using the relative distance between a light source and a standard candle.

Apr 12 The Light Field

No readings

Apr 14 Monte Carlo Integration I: Statistical Sampling

Chapter 2, Fundamentals of Monte Carlo Integration, State of the Art in Monte Carlo Ray Tracing for Realistic Synthesis, SIGGRAPH Course 29, 2001. (course notes pdf)

Chapter 3, Direct Lighting via Monte Carlo Integration, State of the Art in Monte Carlo Ray Tracing for Realistic Synthesis, SIGGRAPH Course 29, 2001.

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Chapter 14.

Optional

E. Veach, Introduction to Monte Carlo Integration, CS448 Lecture 6 Notes, 1997. (ps)

E. Veach, Sampling Random Variables, CS448 Lecture 7 Notes, 1997. (ps)

Eric Veach gave a mini-course on advanced methods in Monte Carlo Ray Tracing in this 1997 Special Topics Course in Computer Graphics. These two lectures, 6 and 7, cover material presented in class.

P. Shirley, Realistic ray tracing, Chapter 11: Monte Carlo Integration, Chapter 12 Choosing sample points, and Chapter 15 Soft Shadows.

These chapters cover the material presented in lectures. These chapters are highly recommended.

Apr 19 Cameras and Film

C. Kolb, D. Mitchell, P. Hanrahan, A realistic camera model for computer graphics, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 95 (Los Angelos, CA, August 6-11, 1995), In Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, 1995, ACM SIGGRAPH, pp. 317-324. (paper).

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering , Chapter 6, 8.1-8.4, 8.5. Optional

B. London and J. Upton, Photography, Fifth Edition, HarperCollins College Publishers, 1994.

A easy-to-read, extremely well-illustrated introduction to photography. Widely used in introductory photography courses.

R. Kingslake, Optics in Photography, SPIE Optical Engineering Press, 1992.

A book on the science of photography aimed at the advanced amateur photographer who wishes to understand more about their equipment. Kingslake was Director of Optical Design for Eastman Kodak Company.

Apr 21 Sampling and Reconstruction: Aliasing and Antialiasing

R. Cook, Stochastic sampling in computer graphics, ACM Transactions on Computer Graphics, 5(1), pp. 51-72, Jan 1986. (acm)

D. Mitchell, Generating antialiased images at low sampling densities, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 87, Computer Graphics 21(3), pp. 65-72, 1987. (acm)

D. Mitchell, A. Netravali, Reconstruction filters for computer graphics, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 88, Computer Graphics 22(4), pp. 221-228, 1988. (acm)

High quality versions of the figures

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Chapters 7.1 and 7.6.

Optional

P. Hanrahan, Notes on signal processing for computer graphics, (unpublished manuscript). (pdf)

I will review this material during the first part of my lecture.

R. Cook, Stochastic sampling and distributed ray tracing, In Glassner, An Introduction to Ray Tracing, pp. 161-199.

A variation of the Cook TOG paper.

M. Dippe, E. Wold, Antialiasing through stochastic sampling, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 85, Computer Graphics 19(3), pp. 69-78, 1985. (acm)

A more rigorous discussion of jittered sampling.

T. Duff, Polygon scan conversion by exact convolution, Proceedings International Conference on Raster Imaging and Digital Typography, pp. 151-168, Cambridge University Press, Oct 1989.

Describes an analytical algorithm for convolving polygonal regions with polynomial filters. Nice comparison with uniform and nonuniform supersampling techniques.

Apr 26 Monte Carlo Integration II

Cook, Carpenter, Porter, Distributed ray tracing. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 84, Computer Graphics, 1984. (acm pdf)

D. Mitchell, Spectrally optimal sampling for distribution ray tracing, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 91, Computer Graphics 25(4), pp. 157-164, 1991. (acm)

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Sections 7.3, 7.4, 7.5 (optional), 15.2-15.4. Optional

M. Lee, R. Redner, S. Uselton, Statistically optimized sampling for distributed ray tracing, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 85, Computer Graphics 19(3), pp. 61-68, 1985. (acm)

Describes the sequential sampling point of view.

Chapter 4, Stratified Sampling on 2-manifolds, State of the Art in Monte Carlo Ray Tracing for Realistic Synthesis, SIGGRAPH Course 29, 2001. (pdf)

A very elegant, but advanced, discussion of uniform area sampling on arbitrary surfaces. Covers methods for stratified sampling.

E. Veach, Variance Reduction I, CS448 Lecture 8 Notes, 1997. (ps)

E. Veach, Variance Reduction II, CS448 Lecture 9 Notes, 1997. (ps)

E. Veach, Quasi-Monte Carlo, CS448 Lecture 10 Notes, 1997. (ps)

Apr 28 Reflection Models I

P. Hanrahan, Rendering concepts, In Cohen and Wallace, Radiosity and Realistic Image Synthesis, pp. 13-40.

Read Section 2.5 now.

S. Westin, Examples of Fresnel Reflectance.

May 3 Reflection Models II: Rough Surfaces and Glossy Reflection

J. Blinn, Models of light reflection for computer synthesized pictures, SIGGRAPH 77, pp. 192-198.

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Chapters 9.

Optional

K. Torrance and E. Sparrow, Theory for the off-specular reflection from roughened surfaces, J. of the Optical Society of America, Vol 57, No 9, pp. 1105-1144. (pdf)

R. Cook and K. Torrance, A reflectance model for computer graphics, SIGGRAPH 81, pp. 307-316, 1981. (acm)

May 5 Texture and Image-Based Rendering

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Chapters 11.

May 10 The Rendering Equation

P. Hanrahan, Rendering concepts, In Cohen and Wallace, Radiosity and Realistic Image Synthesis, pp. 13-40.

Read Section 2.6 now.

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Section 16.2.

May 12 Monte Carlo Path Tracing

P. Hanrahan, Solving the rendering equation, SIGGRAPH 2001 Course 29: Monte Carlo Ray Tracing. (pdf)

M. Fajardo, Monte Carlo ray tracing in action, SIGGRAPH 2001 Course 29: Monte Carlo Ray Tracing. (pdf)

Slides giving an overview of Arnold, his nice path tracer.

Cook, Carpenter, Porter, Distributed ray tracing. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 84, Computer Graphics, 1984. (acm pdf)

I assigned this paper earlier, but you may want to look at it again.

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Section 16.3.

Optional

J. Arvo, Backward ray tracing, In Developments in Ray Tracing, SIGGRAPH `86 Course Notes, August 1986. (ps) Early description of light ray tracing, originally called "Backward" ray tracing.

E. LaFortune, Y. Willems, Bi-directional path tracing, Proceedings of Compugraphics '93, Alvor, Portugal (December '93), pp. 145-153. (ps.gz)

E. Veach, L. Guibas, Bidirectional estimators for light transport, Eurographics Rendering Workshop 1994 Proceedings (Darmstadt, Germany, June 1994), pp. 147-162. (url)

See also Veach and Guibas's paper on multiple importance sampling.

May 17 Irradiance Caching and Photons Maps

G. Ward, F. Rubinstein and R. Clear, A ray tracing solution for diffuse interreflection, SIGGRAPH '88, pp. 85-92, 1988. ( Paper Page)

H. W. Jensen, Global illumination using photon maps, In Rendering Techniques '96, pp. 21-30, 1996. ( Paper Page)

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically-Based Ray Tracer, Section 16.4-16.5.

Optional

Henrik Wann Jensen, Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon Mapping A. K. Peters, 2001.

H. Rushmeier and G. Ward, Energy preserving non-linear filters, SIGGRAPH '94, pp. 131-138, 1994. ( Paper Page)

May 19 Participating Media and Volume Rendering

M. Levoy, Display of surfaces from volume data, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Vol. 8, No. 3, May, 1988, pp. 29-37. (ieee)

N. Max, Optical models for direct volume rendering, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 1(2), June 1995, pp. 97 - 108. (pdf) Hypertexture page

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Chapters 12, 17.

Optional

J. Kajiya and B. Von Herzen, Ray tracing volume densities, Computer Graphics, 18(3), July 1984, pp. 165-174. (acm)

R. Drebin, L. Carpenter, P. Hanrahan, Volume rendering, Computer Graphics, 18(3), July 1984, pp. 65-74. (acm)

K. Perlin, E. Hoffert, Hypertexture, Computer Graphics (Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Conference), 23(3), pp. 253-262, (acm)

May 24 Reflection Models III: Anisotropic Surfaces

J. Kajiya and T. Kay, Rendering fur with three dimensional textures, Computer Graphics, 23(3) pp. 271-280, 1989. (acm)

E. Veach, Multiple Importance Sampling, Chapter 9, PhD Thesis. (pdf)

M. Pharr, G. Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering, Chapters 10.

Optional

R. Lu, J. Koenderink, A. Kappers, Specularities on surfaces with tangential hairs or grooves, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 2-7, 1999. (pdf)

Texts

There is one required text for the course:

Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys, Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation
Morgan-Kaufmann Publishers, 2004
[Book web site]

In addition, the following books will be placed on reserve in the CS library:

Andrew Glassner
An Introduction to Ray Tracing
Academic Press, 1989
[Book web site]

This book contains a collection of chapters written by many of the original inventors of the major ray tracing algorithms. Although somewhat dated, it is filled with both practical and theoretical information that not available in other books.

Peter Shirley and Keith Morley
Realistic Ray Tracing, 2nd Edition
A. K. Peters, 2003
[Errata]

This ray tracing book by Peter Shirley is highly recommended. It covers much of the material in the class at a very understandable level.

Henrik Wann Jensen Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon Mapping A. K. Peters, 2001
[Book web site]

A an intermediate level book that describes the best current technique for global illumination calculations, the photon map.

Philip Dutre, Philippe Bekaert, Kavita Bala Advanced Global Illumination
A. K. Peters, 2003
[Book web site]

Recent overview of global illumination.

Francois Sillion, Claude Puech
Radiosity and Global Illumination
Morgan Kaufmann, 1994

Another good introduction to physically-based rendering, emphasizing radiosity.

Michael Cohen and John Wallace
Radiosity and Realistic Image Synthesis
Academic Press, 1993

The book by Cohen and Wallace is the classic introduction to radiosity. Unfortunately, they concentrate on the finite element method and do not devote much space to Monte Carlo Ray Tracing.

Andrew Glassner
Principles of Digital Image Synthesis
Morgan Kaufmann, 1995

An encyclopedic overview of rendering.

Anthony Apodaca and Larry Gritz
Advanced Renderman: Creating CGI for the Motion Pictures
Morgan Kaufmann, 1999

The best current overview of advanced rendering from a user's point of view.

David Ebert, F. Kenton Musgrave, Darwyn Peachey, Steven Worley, Ken Perlin,
Texturing and Modeling, Third Edition
Morgan Kaufmann, 2003
[Book web site]

An excellent overview of procedural modeling and texturing.

Steve Upstill,
The RenderMan Companion: A Programmers Guide to Realistic Computer Graphics,
Addison-Wesley, 1989.

The standard reference on the RenderMan interface

Copyright © 2005 Pat Hanrahan