Advanced Global Illumination (Hardcover)

by Philip Dutre (Author), Kavita Bala (Author), Philippe Bekaert (Author), Peter Shirley (Foreword)
Key Phrases: classic radiosity method, exitant radiance, radiosity integral equation, Monte Carlo, Stochastic Path-Tracing Algorithms, Bruce Walter (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This is, by far, the best global illumination theory/algorithms book available." - Amazon.com Reviewer "Advanced Global Illumination is a superbly organized and presented academic teaching tool and resource." - Midwest Book Review"

Product Description
This book provides the reader with a fundamental understanding of global illumination algorithms. It discusses a broad class of algorithms for realistic image synthesis and introduces a theoretical basis for the algorithms presented. This completely updated second edition includes: exercises for each chapter; new material on environment map sampling, lightcuts and precomputed radiance transfer; and expanded material on human perception.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 366 pages
• Publisher: AK Peters; 2 edition (September 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568813074
• ISBN-13: 978-1568813073
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #190,004 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Global Illumination Theory Book, March 10, 2005

By	I Dunno "I Dunno" (Ithaca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Advanced Global Illumination (Hardcover)

This is, by far, the best global illumination theory/algorithms book available. The book covers techniques and theories that are at the foundation of all modern renderers. It also provides some nice psuedo-code that demonstrates how to translate theory into code.

The book does have some math, but it is VERY well explained(I'm not a math god by any means, yet I found the equations easy to follow because the authors build an intuitive understanding before hitting you with the equations). A basic calculus course is all you need to get through this book.

This book is NOT an Open GL, DirectX API book. It's a book that focuses on rendering techniques and theory, and it does a great job.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A valuable book for a computer graphics PhD student or researcher, November 2, 2006

By	Janne Kontkanen - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Advanced Global Illumination (Hardcover)

With this book you are not going to learn how to write a ray tracer. In general the book does not explain how to program things, it explains the theory behind different rendering techniques. The book puts together many things that have previously been published only in research publications. For a PhD student or researcher this kind of a book is really a relief as it makes it easier to gain overall knowledge of the science of global illumination.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, August 11, 2007

By	M. Cooper - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book thoroughly covers the macroscopic physics of light transport, hemispherical coordinates, and statistics, not to mention several global illumination algorithms in depth. Although it might not be a perfect introduction to the basics of ray tracing, stochastic ray tracing is covered as well. This book is probably best targeted to those interested in extending their ray tracers to include global illumination or those looking to understand the radiosity algorithm.