ABSTRACT
The book provides 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. It described two of the most popular global illumination algorithms: ray tracing and radiosity. These algorithms have evolved significantly since they were first introduced, but mainly, the core ideas for both are still the same: a ray-tracing algorithm computes radiance values for every pixel in the final image by generating paths between the pixel and the light sources; a radiosity algorithm computes a radiance value for every mesh element in the scene, after which this solution is displayed using any method that can project polygons to the screen. This book focuses on algorithms that try to combine the best of both worlds. These algorithms often use various elements from the previously mentioned approaches, and therefore we call them hybrid algorithms.
