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Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation 2nd Edition

by Matt Pharr (Author), Greg Humphreys (Author)

4.1 45 ratings

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Physically Based Rendering, 2nd Edition describes both the mathematical theory behind a modern photorealistic rendering system as well as its practical implementation. A method - known as 'literate programming'- combines human-readable documentation and source code into a single reference that is specifically designed to aid comprehension. The result is a stunning achievement in graphics education. Through the ideas and software in this book, you will learn to design and employ a full-featured rendering system for creating stunning imagery. New sections on subsurface scattering, Metropolis light transport, precomputed light transport, multispectral rendering, and much more. Includes a companion site complete with source code for the rendering system described in the book, with support for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Please visit, www.pbrt.org. Code and text are tightly woven together through a unique indexing feature

ISBN-10

0123750792
ISBN-13

978-0123750792
Edition

2nd
Publisher

Morgan Kaufmann
Publication date

2010
July 12
Language

EN
English
Dimensions

7.5 x 1.8 x 9.3
inches
Length

1200
Pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Physically Based Rendering is a terrific book. It covers all the marvelous math, fascinating physics, practical software engineering, and clever tricks that are necessary to write a state-of-the-art photorealistic renderer. All of these topics are dealt with in a clear and pedagogical manner without omitting the all-important practical details." --Per Christensen Senior Software Developer, RenderMan Products Pixar Animation Studios "Intended for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in a computer graphics course, this large volume provides a comprehensive examination of complex rendering algorithms and demonstrates, through detailed examination of source code and example projects, the practical development and application of cutting edge image creation and processing software. This second edition is updated to reflect current technologies and contains updated information on relevant recent hardware improvements such as advanced multi-core processors as well as an increased focus on production graphics techniques. The text includes numerous illustrations, code examples, and formulas as well as recommendations for further reading and chapter exercises. Pharr is a principle engineer for Intel and Humphreys is an engineer for NVIDIA and a former professor of computer science at the University of Virginia." --SciTech Book News "Pharr and Humphreys’ textbook is beautifully typeset, thoroughly indexed, unendingly cross-referenced, extensively illustrated, and printed in full color. Given its unconventional preparation style, this textbook stands out because of its descriptions of the tradeoffs involved in developing a complete working renderer. Although somewhat verbose at times, the discussions of design tradeoffs and performance considerations are an excellent complement to the more traditional coverage of the theory behind photorealistic rendering. C++ idioms sometimes get in the way of more elegant solutions, but their use is always reasonably justified. If you are just looking for a general introduction to image synthesis and rendering, standard graphics textbooks [2] might fit the bill; however, if you intend to develop your own renderer or try out new ideas, this textbook provides an excellent starting point." --Computing Reviews.com

Review

An updated and expanded edition of the definitive rendering reference!

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Morgan Kaufmann; 2nd edition (July 12, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 1200 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0123750792
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0123750792
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.84 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,796,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #147 in Rendering & Ray Tracing
- #195 in 3D Graphic Design
- #1,830 in Game Programming

Customer Reviews:
4.1 45 ratings

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About the authors

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Greg Humphreys
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Greg Humphreys is a Software Lead at NVIDIA where he works on OptiX, a high performance GPU raytracing engine. Part raytracer, part compiler, part runtime binary modification system, and part operating system, OptiX allows users to create very high performance raytracers that adapt to both the GPU architecture they are running on as well as the dataset they are currently rendering.
Previously Greg has worked at Aggregate Knowledge, a startup company working in analytics, data mining, recommendations, and online advertising. Greg was also a professor of Computer Science at the University of Virginia, and received his Ph.D. from the Stanford Graphics Lab.
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Matt Pharr
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Matt Pharr is a Software Engineer at Google, where he works in virtual reality. He was previously a Principal Engineer at Intel after Intel acquired Neoptica, which he co-founded. Before Neoptica, Matt co-founded Exluna (acquired by NVIDIA), worked in Pixar's Rendering R&D group, and received his PhD from the Stanford Graphics Lab.
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4.1 out of 5

45 global ratings

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new level of the great book

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2010

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ok, I should not repeat what people already said about the first edition - this book is definitely great, outstanding, and it covers both theory and implementation indeed
I also will not repeat what you can find in th preface - thanks to editor you can preview the book and find what it is about and how it differs from the first edition. The preview also contains three chapters, it is more than enough to give you an understanding what kind of book is it. So, please, no this "I whant to render nice pictures, and this book is full of formulas and program code" comments.

No CDs included, because the renderer source code is available on the book web site (mentioned in the introductory chapter)

I just whant to add something to "About the Authors" because things about them changed more than a little bit, and because you could not find this information here.
(from the back-cover)

Matt Pharr co-founded both Exluna (acquired by NVIDIA) and Neoptica (acquired by Intel), and has also worked in Pixar's Rendering R&D group.
Greg Humphreys is the software lead for the OptiX ray tracing engine at NVIDIA [OptiX is GPU-accelerated rt toolkit, you can find it on NVIDIA developer site - V.I.]

So, as you can see, the authors are trustworthy, at least in this area :).

2 people found this helpful

This book is best read like a novel.

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2020

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If you are graphics programmer, hobby or pro, this is not a book to skip. In its paper form it is easily enjoyed during leisure time, and a great reference in the future.

Someone altered my digital order from print replica to kindle (mobi)!!

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

When that kindle edition was on sale, I ordered that print replica version instead of regular kindle edition (mobi). I had a PDF-version copy for a while but they altered my digital order with kindle edition instead without my knowledge. Later kindle app automatically re-downloaded it from cloud storage. I ended up mobi version instead that it does not allow me to zoom anymore. However, Elsevier store website still offers PDF version for both editions of that book. That's why I prefer PDF version over MOBI version and I will order PDF version for both books (1st and 2nd editions) soon. Rated 1 star.

Also I have print book and reviewed book. That is very good information for ray-tracing programming but it is not for beginners. It requires knowledge of Calculus and Linear Algebra. I researched about that and found some interesting articles like realistic camera lens that uses complex mathematics to render everything as if real camera take photos. I am so impressed. Some day I will learn how to write a program to simulate real camera lens. Rated 5 stars.

Overall ratings: 3 stars.

you might be better off looking elsewhere

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2017

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I think seems be a very thorough discussion of PBR within the context of raytracing. If you are going to be working with real time rendering, you might be better off looking elsewhere. The math is quite advanced and assumes a lot of prior knowledge (a lot of it is above my head). This is definitely a graduate level text book.

2 people found this helpful

Still getting into it, but looks like just what I was after

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2013

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I have spent a good portion of my career using software that performs physics based image rendering.
Now I get to learn it at a much lower level.
This will be a fun journey.

poor rendering (

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2016

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A must have book. Fullstop. The kindle version is so-so, poor rendering (...) of the equation.

DO NOT BUY Kindle Edition

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2012

Verified Purchase

This is not a comment about the book contents but simply a big warning for the digital format. Almost all equations were simply images scanned from the books. And reference links or cited pages were either wrong or dead. Why the hell there's a kindle version anyway? And such bad qualities and useless print still costs 58 USD, hard-cover is only 5 bucks more. I know I'm stupid, but please stop scamming money out of nerds.

74 people found this helpful

Modern rendering algorithms through the documented source code...

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2013

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

"Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation" is aptly named. This text book presents a selection of modern rendering algorithms through the documented source code that eventually builds a complete rendering system called "pbrt".

"pbrt" is based on the ray-tracing algorithm. According to the authors this software has three goals in mind: it should be complete, illustrative, and physically based. Completeness meaning that there should be lacking features found in high quality commercial rendering packages, illustrative meaning that they tried to choose algorithms, data structures, and rendering techniques with an eye toward readability and clarity, and physically based meaning that the foundations should be based on the laws of physics and their mathematically expressions.

It should also be noted that the authors take the "literate programming" methodology first coined by Donald Knuth based on the idea that programs should be written more for people's consumption than for computer's consumption.

In order to get the most out of this text your should already have a strong background in computer graphics and are probably enrolled in a graduate level computer science program. Knowledge of vector geometry and transformations are assumed. Also experience with programs with tens of thousands lines of source code would be beneficial, in my opinion.

But if you think your ready, Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys deliver on their promise with over 1,000 pages building the "pbrt" rendering system from the ground up. You'll get a full course meal consisting of primitive acceleration, radiometry, sampling and reconstruction, reflection models, volume scattering, monte carlo integration, and light transport.

Overall, this can be an intimidating tome. I probably would not recommend this textbook to those that are wanting to jump right to section to learn more about a concept. Instead, you need to have a lot of time set aside to work though this book, which will consists of a lot of code writing. But if you have what it takes, I highly recommend taking the journey, for you will be rewarding with an exceptional understanding of the entire workflow of physically based rendering techniques.

4 people found this helpful

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Vasco Costa

Great content. But the book Amazon sent me was ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 11, 2018

Verified Purchase

Great content. But the book Amazon sent me was dented and they claimed it was a transportation fault. Well, it wasn't me who chose the transporters. I've also had a package come completely soaked once. Good thing it didn't have a book inside.

freejack

besser geht nicht!

Reviewed in Germany on June 24, 2011

Verified Purchase

Dieses Buch beschreibt ausführlich die Hintergründe und die zweckmäßige Implementierung eines Renderers mit dem Ray Tracing Algorithmus. Biased Rendering wird kurz gestreift, der Schwerpunkt liegt jedoch auf physikalisch korrektem, unbiased Rendering.

Es werden alle Bestandteile (Sampler, Integratoren, Metropolis Light Transport, BRDF, ...) eines Rendering Systems behandelt. Neben der Dardestellung im Buch gibt es auf der begleitenden Web-Site auch noch das komplette System im Quellcode samt zahlreichen Beispielszenen unter einer freien Lizenz. Selbst Grundlagen wie geometrische Datenstrukturen (Trees, Voxel, ...) zur effizienten Implementierung finden Platz.

In einer englischen Rezension wurde folgender treffene Kommentar zu diesem Buch samt der kompletten, funktionierenden Implementierung des Renderers abgegeben: jeder, der schon mal auf Basis eines Papers etwas implementieren musste, dass auch funktioniert, weiß wie sehr man dieses Werk schätzen muss!

In allen Kapiteln gibt es auch noch Übungen und Ideen für Erweiterungen sowie Literaturhinweise (so gehört es sich natürlich auch, ist jedoch leider nicht selbstvertändlich).

Abschließend sei noch das wunderschön gebundene Buch zum vergleichsweise günstigen Preis für so ein Spezialthema lobend erwähnt.

Zu meckern gibt es also nichts wesentliches. Der pbrt-Renderer hat sich inzwischen auch als Basis für zahlreiche Paper und Veröffentlichungen etabliert. Das saubere, objektorientierte und dabei doch performante Design und die einfache Erweiterbarkeit dürften die Hauptgründe dafür sein.

Nur ganz aktuelle Entwicklungen, wie z.B. Teile des Renderers mit OpenCL auf GPUs laufen lassen (die nächste Generation vom Blender Renderer wird dies nutzen, im luxrender gibt es auch erste Module dazu) oder auch SPPM ("Stochastic progressive photon mapping"), sind in diesem Grundlagenbuch noch nicht abgedeckt.

6 people found this helpful

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Novox

Schönes Buch mit didaktische Schwächen

Reviewed in Germany on October 7, 2012

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Wenn man "Physically based rendering" (2nd Edition) das erste mal aufschlägt, sticht einem zunächst das schöne Layout mit der größtenteils gelungenen typographischen Gestaltung ins Auge. Das umfangreiche Inhaltsverzeichnis verheißt einen umfassenden Überblick über moderne Techniken der Computergrafik. Allein, der didaktische Ansatz hinter diesem Werk scheitert leider kläglich, wenn es darum geht, dem Leser echtes Verständnis für die behandelte Materie zu vermitteln.

Das Buch ist im sogenannten “Literate-Programming”-Stil verfaßt, d.h. Code-Listings wechseln sich mit erklärenden Prosa-Texten ab. Die Code-Schnipsel stammen aus dem Raytracer pbrt der Autoren, dessen Quellcode auch auf der Website des Buches heruntergeladen werden kann. Nun mag sich Literate Programming gut dazu eignen komplexen Quellcode zu dokumentieren und wenn man dem Buch von Anfang bis Ende folgt (und keine Fehler macht), kann man so auch eine eigene Version von pbrt selbst reimplementieren. Ob diese Version dann funktionstüchtig ist, merkt man aber leider erst ganz zum Schluß.

Sinnvoller wäre es meiner Meinung nach gewesen, wenn die Autoren einen iterativen Weg gewählt hätten: Anstatt dem Leser vom ersten Kapitel an einen schwer zu durchblickenden, vergleichsweise komplexen State-of-the-Art-Raytracer um die Ohren zu hauen, hätten sie mit einer einfachen, grundlegenden Variante beginnen sollen (Stichwort: Schwebende Kugel im Raum mit Ambient-Lighting), deren Fähigkeiten dann nach und nach ausgebaut werden würde. So hätte der CG-Neuling direkt laufenden Programmcode zur Hand — den er noch dazu in allen Einzelheiten verstünde — was der dauerhaften Motivation sicherlich zugute käme.

Folglich kann man dieses, grundsätzlich schön gemachte, Buch nur Lesern empfehlen, die bereits über ein fundiertes Grundwissen verfügen und schon zwei, drei Raytracer selbst implementiert haben. Dann kann dieses Werk durchaus als Inspirationsquelle für die eigene Arbeit dienen. Neulinge aber sollten besser die Finger von "Physically based rendering" lassen.

8 people found this helpful

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Martin Tomasi

A great second computer graphics book

Reviewed in Germany on April 23, 2014

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This is not an introductory text. A good familiarity with general computer graphics concepts, mathematical notation and C++ is assumed. That is necessary since this book has a very large scope and tries to do many things. I personally really like the way code and text are mixed in this book, it feels very natural. There is a lot of ground that is covered, from basics of ray tracing to sampling theory, transformations, shading, BRDFs and more advanced topics like Monte Carlo sampling, Metropolis light transport, subsurface scattering and so on. As for the code, the authors only use a subset of the C++ language (as I imagine everyone does, since the language is so massive) and the code is quite readable. There are some concessions made for performance, but those are generally well-explained in the accompanying text. The book has a very solid amount of illustrations that help visualize things like ray-object intersections, acceleration structures and a lot of other things. This book is a remarkable effort to make advanced computer graphics and its implementation in code accessible and It does a fantastic job at that.

Amazon Customer

Useful content obscured by bad presentation.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 15, 2015

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While this book certainly contains some useful information, it is obscured by the rather appalling presentation style.

The first chapter presents the idea of "literate programming", and mentions that in reading the book, you will read the "full implementation of the pbrt rendering system". Yup, the entire source code for their program is in the book. Is it any wonder that (as the authors note) only two other books have been written like this?

As I see it, the hierarchy of code to books should be like so:

The code should contain the working implementation in its simplest practical form. It should be clear, concise, readable, and easily navigable with modern IDEs and tools. Putting the code in the book destroys that last point, making it harder to understand, and harder to get an idea of structure or intent. In addition the code itself is made less readable (by reducing variable and function name length and removing all vertical spacing) purely for purposes of fitting it in the book.

Comments should explain why the code makes certain choices with regard to implementation. They should describe what code does only where the code must necessarily be unclear. The PBRT source contains reasonable (if minimal) comments. However, in the book, the authors choose to simply restate most of what the code does in the form of text, similar to the worst type of code commenting by beginner programmers.

Theory should not be explained in the code or comments. This is what a book is for. It should work from top down, explaining the background and overall aims of the code, as well as the techniques and algorithms used, going into detail where necessary. In book form, diagrams, graphs and tables can be freely used to convey ideas. While PBRT contains some useful diagrams and passages, it often abandons any attempt to explain and devolves to uniformly copy-pasting and describing all the source code.

To sum up: The PBRT book takes the code and theory, and shoves it all together. This makes it very difficult to read and digest the theory, and harder to understand or navigate the code. Furthermore the actual writing is often very unclear or ambiguous.

If this book omitted the code and focussed on explaining the theory as clearly as possible it could be around a third of the length, but contain more information.

9 people found this helpful

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