Interactive Distribution Ray Tracing

Abstract

Distribution ray tracing uses multiple samples per pixel to produce antialiased images that include soft shadows, glossy reflection, motion blur, and depth-of-field. The two main potential barriers to making distribution ray tracing interactive are that many rays might be required, and that those rays are not coherent enough to derive efficiency from tracing them in packets. A new interleaved sampling approach based on the Sudoku puzzle is used to minimize the number of rays per pixel. An empirical demonstration is used to show that there is still enough coherence in the rays to allow for a per-ray cost near that of a traditional ray tracer. In addition, a demonstration is provided that participating media can also be handled interactively in a distribution ray tracer. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Ray tracing 1.