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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 | Virtual Light Sources
in Radiance
Radiance now supports virtual light sources in planar surfaces such as
mirrors. The method of virtual sources is used to create the appearance
of a new source in a virtual world on the other side of the transferring
surface, or "relay object." Shadow rays are then sent to these virtual
sources along with the regular sources, testing not only for occlusion
but also for the geometric boundaries of the virtual source path.
This is necessary to yield the correct light patch shape.
The method used for specifying virtual sources in Radiance is quite
simple. Certain materials possess the "virtual source" attribute.
When such a material modifies a planar surface, virtual light
sources are created. It is an error to use a virtual source material
on a non-planar surface such as a sphere. Currently, the materials
"mirror," "prism1" and "prism2" have the virtual light source attribute.
If multiple facing mirrors appear in a scene, the number of virtual
sources can multiply quite rapidly. We therefore introduce a limit to
the number of virtual source "relays" allowed, with the rendering
option -dr. A setting of -dr 0 means that virtual sources will not
be considered at all. Another technique that can limit the growth of
virtual sources is called "virtual source presampling," which is
controlled with the -dp option. Presampling tests a virtual source
for visibility before adding it to the calculation, thus avoiding the
inclusion of virtual sources that would never appear and the shadow
testing of virtual sources that are never occluded. A presampling
density of -dp 0 means that all virtual sources will be included and
fully tested for shadows. This is potentially much more expensive, but it
is the only way to guarantee absolute shadow accuracy at any resolution.
Even without presampling, Radiance performs many checks of virtual
sources before including them in the calculation. In addition to the
obvious tests to insure that a source is on the correct side of the
relay object, facing the proper direction and so on, Radiance also
computes the solid angle that corresponds to the maximum influence of
each virtual source. This greatly speeds up the direct calculation by
avoiding virtual source shadow tests that could not possibly pay off.
Nevertheless, virtual light sources can be quite costly, especially if
there are many mirror surfaces that see each other. Presampling avoids
most of the costs associated with fruitless testing, but in scenes with
mutual reflections, there may still be hundreds or even thousands of
virtual light sources created. Even with the solid angle limits, each
virtual source must be considered at least briefly before it is rejected.
It is therefore very important for efficiency to minimize the number of
mirror surfaces in a scene as much as possible. In particular, do not
make relay objects from many small mirror elements. Such elements should
be consolidated into the largest polygons possible.
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