Light Transport Simulation and Realistic Rendering: State of the Art Report

Abstract

The field of light transport simulation quickly growths in last decades. Nowadays there are about hundreds of books and papers that are quite difficult to cover for applied researcher or developer. Unlike similar surveys, in this paper we make attempt to provide short roadmap to select the best method for some light transport problem based on scene and calculated phenomena constraints. In our paper we propose several classifications for light transport simulation algorithms based on their mathematical properties, robustness and required scene constraints. These classifications help to understand advantages, disadvantages and limitations of the methods. In this paper we use not only a survey of existing works but also our own experience with the methods that we have implemented over the last decade in different software products. Some results of our experiments are shown in the paper. Finally, we propose a short guide for method selection in form of block scheme.