Global Illumination

Projects | 2014 | Links:

After doing the ray tracer unit (see further on), I chose a follow-up unit on Computer Graphics (called CG2) at Leuven uni. This unit was concerned with global illumination algorithms and their theoretical aspects. I learned a great deal in this unit, and the teaching was the best I ever had. The content of the course is basically the same as the content of this book, which I very much recommend to everyone. On top of that, there was some room for exploring state-of-the-art research in the field of rendering.

For this course, we had to do several smaller projects. I wrote some blogposts about them, which give a very good insight in what I learned in the unit. Just listing the most interesting stuff we had to do:

• Model real-life lightbulbs, including sampling profile and radiance profile
• Implement physically-based BRDFs (I did Cook-Torrance and Ward).
• Experiment with sampling optimizations for Monte Carlo ray tracing.
• Perform a mathematical of the Radiosity algorithm.

The unit left me with a very good understanding of the principles behind global illumation rendering, and was an excellent prepartion for my masters project at Leuven Uni.