Physically Based Rendering: From
Theory to Implementation (The
Interactive 3d Technology Series) by
Greg Humphreys
Simply The Best On Modern Rendering Algorithms And Code
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 systems 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.
Personal Review: Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to
Implementation (The Interactive 3d Technology Series) by Greg
Humphreys
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.
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