Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation (The Interactive 3d Technology Series) [Hardcover]

Matt Pharr (Author), Greg Humphreys (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 012553180X | ISBN-13: 978-0125531801 | Publication Date: August 18, 2004

"Computer graphics, and rendering in particular, is full of beautiful theory. The theory covers physical concepts, such as light fields and the interaction of light with different materials, and mathematical concepts, such as integral equations and Monte Carlo integration. The great thing about computers is that they allow us to build rendering systems based on the best theory. This book turns the theory of image-making into a practical method for creating images." -from the foreword by Pat Hanrahan, Canon USA Professor, Stanford University
From movies to video games, computer-rendered images are pervasive today. Physically Based Rendering introduces the concepts and theory of photorealistic rendering hand in hand with the source code for a sophisticated renderer. By coupling the discussion of rendering algorithms with their implementations, Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys are able to reveal many of the details and subtleties of these algorithms. But this book goes further; it also describes the design strategies involved with building real systems-there is much more to writing a good renderer than stringing together a set of fast algorithms. For example, techniques for high-quality antialiasing must be considered from the start, as they have implications throughout the system. The rendering system described in this book is itself highly readable, written in a style called literate programming that mixes text describing the system with the code that implements it. Literate programming gives a gentle introduction to working with programs of this size. This lucid pairing of text and code offers the most complete and in-depth book available for understanding, designing, and building physically realistic rendering systems.* Winner of an Honorable Mention in the Computer and Information Science category from The Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP) of the Association of American Publishers (AAP)
* Finalist for the 15th Annual Jolt Awards
* Companion CD-ROM includes the source code for a complete rendering system for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux-with many of the features found in high-quality commercial systems.
* The system's plug-in architecture makes its basic structure transparent and allows for new features to be added easily.
* The rendering system implements a number of newer or difficult-to-implement algorithms and techniques, including subdivision surfaces, Monte Carlo light transport, and volumetric scattering.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One can buy dozens of books on ray-tracing and physically based rendering, but when you actually sit down to write rendering code yourself, you may suddenly realize those books are only telling you half the story. At every turn you will face design and engineering decisions about everything from data structures to sampling patterns, any one of which can impact system performance drastically. Most people who have worked in the innards of rendering systems have learned this esoterica by hearsay and a lot of trial and error. Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys have decided to tell the rest of the story, by publishing and annotating the breadth and depth of a fully functional, physically based renderer, using the literate programming approach. Applying this approach-which interleaves source code and descriptive text-to the construction and documentation of even a simple computer program can be a daunting task, but it's application here is Herculean and quite possibly historic. In spite of their attention to engineering detail, the authors haven't skimped on their coverage of the theoretical underpinnings of physically based rendering. Their chapters on sampling theory and material models are among the best in print. However, the inclusion of a working artifact that implements the theory using corresponding notation and structure is an incomparable learning and teaching tool." -Dan Goldman, computer graphics supervisor for visual effects

"We have been using early versions of this book and its accompanying source code in our graduate courses and in our research for the past two semesters, and we've been thrilled with them. The book has an excellent blend of the theoretical and practical information needed to build an efficient physically based renderer. Much of the information contained in the book is not available in any other reference book; an example is the description of practical methods for anisotropic filtering. The code that accompanies the book satisfies at least as great a need-it's well written, well commented, and strikes a good balance between performance and extensibility. As a result, we have already adopted the code as the software infrastructure for two different research projects within our group. I enthusiastically recommend that any researcher or practioner who works on rendering systems buy a copy of this book." -Bill Mark, Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin

"This book is the only place to my knowledge where the implementation details of several advanced global illumination algorithms are actually shown. Not only details, but code! That is a tremendous benefit to the community and a major strength of the book." -Timothy Purcell, Stanford University / NVIDIA

"Designing and implementing a production-quality ray tracer that is based on the physical principles of light transport is difficult. Writing a book that clearly explains the underlying principles and algorithms, from radiative transfer theory to Loop subdivision and photon mapping, is hard. Combining these explanations with source code using Knuth's literate programming methodology to produce a beautifully-designed, full-featured, and wonderfully extensible rendering system might seem NP-hard, but this book proves that it can be done. Whether you are a computer science student or computer graphics researcher, there is simply no better book on the topic." -Ian Ashdown, President, byHeart Consultants Limited

"A good textbook should inspire, and inform the reader and allow him or her to go beyond the covers of the book. Matt and Greg have done a yeoman's job of creating a very comprehensive source of knowledge on the topics of global illumination and physically based rendering. The book certainly informs the reader. It does not simplify the material and that is a good thing. Rather, through careful exposition and very useful illustrations it provides several learning aids. There are several chapters on several fundamental topics replete with examples, figures and illustrations. Also, the treatment of various algorithms is simultaneously both comprehensive and in great depth. Most importantly, the book relies on a carefully developed programming environment that allows the reader to experiment. pbrt is easy to use and yet allows for rendition of complex scenes. As a result one can learn the material in a pedagogically sound way and also venture beyond the confines of the text. It is easy to be inspired by the effort. I have used a version of the book and software as a text for an advanced course in computer graphics. Both my students and I found the text very useful." -Raghu Machiraju, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University

"This book is a great tool for anyone looking to get into advanced ray tracing techniques. It is the best guide to architecting a photorealistic renderer that I have seen." -Brian Budge, Ph.D. student, graphics and visualization research group, UC Davis

Book Description

The most complete guide to rendering—in both concept and code

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1056 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (August 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 012553180X
• ISBN-13: 978-0125531801
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,085,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > Computers & Technology > Graphic Design > Rendering & Ray Tracing

More About the Author

Matt Pharr is a Principal Engineer at Intel and the lead graphics architect in the Advanced Rendering Technology group, which researches new interactive graphics algorithms and programming models. He previously co-founded Neoptica, which developed new programming models for graphics on heterogeneous CPU+GPU systems; Neoptica was acquired by Intel.

Before Neoptica, Matt was in the Software Architecture group at NVIDIA, co-founded Exluna (acquired by NVIDIA), worked in Pixar's Rendering R&D group, and received his PhD from the Stanford Graphics Lab.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Six stars out of five, November 15, 2004

By 

Arkadiusz Zimny (Poland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation (The Interactive 3d Technology Series) (Hardcover)

Although it is not possible here, I am fairly sure this book deserves such rating. This is truly remarkable work and is likely to become a classic text in the field of computer graphics.

It is not a survey-type book, instead of trying to describe every possible method out there, the authors have concentrated on a few selected techniques, that are not only good (modern, fast, easy to implement, etc.), but also have some pedagogical merits and can serve as a gentle introduction to the world of ray tracing and digital image synthesis. Despite focusing on selected areas, the authors managed to squeeze here in an amazing amount of material. Among other topics, this book covers: subdivision surfaces, ray-primitive intersection acceleration techniques (3D DDA and kd-tree), color and radiometry, anti-aliasing, tone mapping, physically based reflection models, texture mapping (including texture anti-aliasing using ray differentials), area lights and HDR Image Based Lighting, volume scattering and much more.

A large part of the book has been devoted to the light transport and Monte Carlo techniques. One can find there an introduction to the theory of Monte Carlo estimation (including selected methods for reducing variance and computation time, like Russian roulette, multiple importance sampling or stratified sampling) and explanation of important light transport equations (rendering and transfer equations).

Finally the authors have described (and implemented) several solutions for the rendering equation: Whitted-style recursive ray tracing, direct illumination estimation, path tracing, irradiance caching and photon mapping.

However, it is not only the vastness of the material covered in this book, that causes this volume should be praised so highly. Perhaps, the style, in which this book has been written, is even more impressive. For each of the topics, the authors start with what is usually known as "dry math and theory", and then show how it is supposed to work as an algorithm (including its dirty details) and finally they explain how to turn this algorithm into C++ code. Each of those transitions concentrates on a small portion of the problem, so it is still easy to understand. Anyone, who had to turn a SIGGRAPH paper into something that works, will immediately recognize what kind of gem this book is - it actually shows how to do it!

This brilliant blend of theory and practice is one of its brightest spots, for learning the theory and math formulas is one thing, but writing a working, robust implementation is completely another.

Those, who prefer studying sources, will get source code of a very good, physically based, extensible ray tracer (called pbrt) with the best documentation one could ever imagine. Documentation that gives the rationale for almost every line of code. It shows not only how they did it, but also why they did it that way.

It is not the only book, that one will ever need - computer graphics is a vast topic - too big to be covered in a single volume, even as huge as this one. However, it is certainly one of the books that everyone interested in photorealistic rendering should buy. The price of this book is really low, if you think about it as of an excellent, first-rate computer graphics course.

Aimed at students, researchers and people interested in computer graphics algorithms, it is an indispensable book for anyone willing to write his own photorealistic (not necessarily physically based!) ray tracer and learn more about computer image synthesis.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply the best on modern rendering algorithms and code, November 23, 2005

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation (The Interactive 3d Technology Series) (Hardcover)

This book mixes detailed algorithm descriptions with actual code in a book that never loses sight of the "big picture" of physically based ray tracing and image synthesis. Although it is very well written and is not a dry academic book at all, it would help if the reader is already familiar with basic computer graphic techniques, linear algebra, calculus, and optics in order to get the most out of this book. It was never meant to be a replacement for Foley & Van Dam's classic book on computer graphics, even though the first few chapters go over basic computer graphic material. The book includes a website where the source code of the authors' renderer can be downloaded. This code is very well organized and commented so that if you wish to lift individual pieces from the entire software package you can with just a little bit of work. I highly recommend this book to the programmer who wishes to implement physically based rendering in his/her own code or wants to know about the practical implementation of image synthesis techniques. Amazon does not show any details about the book here, so I shall explain the contents in the context of the table of contents:
CHAPTER 01. INTRODUCTION
This chapter talks briefly about all kinds of topics related to ray tracing. It also talks about how to understand the code in the book and the book website.
CHAPTER 02. GEOMETRY AND TRANSFORMATIONS
This chapter is pretty basic computer graphics stuff. It talks about coordinate systems, vectors, arithmetic, scaling, dot and cross products,etc. Applying transformations via matrices is also discussed as well as the representation of points, vectors, normals, rays, and bounding boxes.
CHAPTER 03. SHAPES
More basic computer graphics continues with discussions on spheres, differential geometry, cylinders, and disks, paraboloids, triangles and meshes, and the representation and bounding of all of these shapes.
CHAPTER 04. PRIMITIVES AND INTERSECTION ACCELERATION
This chapter is about accelerating the speed of your graphics through grid acceleration, tree construction and representation, and object instantiation.
CHAPTER 05. COLOR AND RADIOMETRY
XYZ color system is discussed along with radiometric integrals including integrals over projected solid angles, integrals over spherical coordinates, and integrals over area. Beginning in this chapter the math becomes more advanced.
CHAPTER 06. CAMERA MODELS
Projective camera models are discussed along with orthographic, perspective, and environment camera models. This information will already be familiar to students of computer vision.
CHAPTER 07. SAMPLING AND RECONSTRUCTION
Frequency domain techniques are discussed starting with the Fourier transform and ideal sampling and reconstruction. Also, antialiasing techniques are explained.
CHAPTER 08. FILM AND THE IMAGING PIPELINE
This chapter talks about topics such as luminance, photometry, bloom, and imaging pipeline stages.
CHAPTER 09. REFLECTION MODELS
The various reflection models are discussed including specular, Fresnel, Lambertian, Oren-Nayer disfuse reflection, and the Lafortune model.
CHAPTER 10. MATERIALS
Matte, plastic, bump mapping, and other material effects are explained very well.
CHAPTER 11. TEXTURE
We return to frequency models some in this chapter. The texture sampling rate, filtering functions, and mapping in spherical, cylindrical, and planar form are explained. Procedural textures are also discussed including the famous Perlin noise, marble, and windy waves.
CHAPTER 12. VOLUME SCATTERING
This chapter is considered more advanced material, and discusses volume scattering processes, absorption, emission, in and out scattering, phase functions, exponential density, and volume aggregates.
CHAPTER 13. LIGHT SOURCES
All kinds of light sources are described including point lights, spotlights, texture projection lights, distant lights, area lights, and infinite area lights.
CHAPTERS 14 and 15 both discuss Monte Carlo integration techniques including improving efficiency.
CHAPTERS 16 and 17 are about light transport. The first chapter is about surface reflection and the second is about volume rendering.
CHAPTER 18. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION includes a design retrospective, a discussion of abstraction versus reality, and design alternatives including triangles only and streaming computation.
APPENDIXES- These include sections on utilities, scene description interface, input file formats, an index of code fragments, an index of classes and their members, and finally an index of identifiers.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Graphics Must Have, November 3, 2004

By 

Doug Epps - See all my reviews

This review is from: Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation (The Interactive 3d Technology Series) (Hardcover)

This book covers everything you need to know to write a ray tracer with
advanced features like photon mapping, volume scattering, path tracing,
etc. The scope of the material it covers is stunning. It starts from the
basics of topics like 3D geometry and ray/object intersections and then
builds up to explain reflection models, advanced texturing techniques, and
then light transport algorithms.

It has excellent discussions of the theory and underlying math of physical
rendering blended (rather well) with very very useful practical
implementations of the theory. The leap from theory to implementation is
often difficult to do, and to do well or efficiently even more difficult.
(The ray acceleration code alone is worth it's weight in gold.) This is an
indispensable book for anyone who wants to write their own ray tracer or
learn more about the latest techniques used in photorealistic rendering.