= Assignment 3: Camera Simulation =

== Due: Thursday May 4th, 11:59PM ==

Questions? Need help? Post them on the Assignment3Discussion page so everyone else can see!

Please add  a link to your final writeup on ["Assignment3Submission"].

=== Description ===

Many rendering systems approximate the light arriving on the film plane by assuming a pin-hole camera, which produces images where everything that is visible is sharp.  In contrast, real cameras contain multi-lens assemblies with different imaging characteristics such as limited depth of field, field distortion, vignetting and spatially varying exposure.  In this assignment, you'll extend pbrt with support for a more realistic camera model that accurately simulates these effects.  

Specifically, we will provide you with data about real wide-angle, normal and telephoto lenses, each composed of multiple lens elements. You will build a camera plugin for pbrt that simulates the traversal of light through these lens assemblies.  

With this camera simulator, you'll explore the effects of focus, aperture and exposure.  You will empirically characterize the critical points of the telephoto and normal lenses.  Using these data you can  optimize the performance of your simulator considerably.

=== Step 1: Background Reading ===

Please re-read the paper [http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/papers/camera "A Realistic Camera Model for Computer Graphics"] by Kolb, Mitchell, and Hanrahan.