Making radiosity usable

Abstract

Generating accurate radiosity solutions of real world environments is user-intensive and requires significant knowledge of the method. As a result, few end-users such as architects and designers use it. The output of most commercial modeling packages must be substantially "cleaned up" to satisfy the geometrical and topological criteria imposed by radiosity solution algorithms. Furthermore, the mesh used as the basis of the radiosity computation must meet several additional requirements for the solution to be accurate.A set of geometrical and topological requirements is formalized that when satisfied yields an accurate radiosity solution. A series of algorithms is introduced that automatically processes raw model databases to meet these requirements. Thus, the end-user can concentrate on the design rather than on the details of the radiosity solution process. These algorithms are generally independent of the radiosity solution technique used, and thus apply to all mesh based radiosity methods.