State of the Art in Photon Density Estimation

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Abstract

Photon density estimation techniques are a popular choice for simulating light transport in scenes with complicated geometry and materials. This class of algorithms can be used to accurately simulate inter-reflections, caustics, color bleeding, scattering in participating media and subsurface scattering. Since its introduction, photon density estimation has been significantly extended in computer graphics with the introduction of: specialized techniques that intelligently modify the positions or bandwidths to reduce visual error using a small number of photons, approaches which eliminate error completely in the limit, and methods that use higher-order samples and queries to reduce error in participating media. This course provides the necessary insight to implement all these latest advances in photon density estimation. The course starts out with a short introduction to photon density estimation using classical photon mapping, but the remainder of the two-part course provides new, hands-on explanations of the latest developments in this area by the experts behind each technique. The course will also cover recent applications of these techniques within industry. The course will give the audience concrete and practical understanding of the latest developments in photon density estimation techniques that have not been presented in prior SIGGRAPH courses.

Syllabus & Schedule

2:00pm	Introduction (Jarosz) slides
	Regular Photon Density Estimation:
2:05pm	Photon Mapping Basics (Jensen) slides
2:20pm	Photon Relaxation (Spencer) slides
2:35pm	Photon Differentials (Frisvad) slides
	Progressive Photon Density Estimation:
2:55pm	Progressive Photon Mapping Basics (Hachisuka) slides
3:05pm	Progressive Photon Mapping Extensions (Hachisuka) slides
3:20pm	Probabilistic PPM (Zwicker) slides & notes
	Photon Density Estimation in Participating Media:
3:40pm	Participating Media Basics (Jarosz) slides & notes
3:50pm	Progressive EM (Jakob) slides | slides & notes
4:05pm	From Photons to Beams (Jarosz) slides
	Photon Density Estimation in Industry:
4:25pm	Photon Beams in Tangled (Kaschalk & Selle) N/A due to copyrights
4:40pm	Photon Mapping in PRMan (Christensen) slides
4:55pm	Progressive Photon Mapping in LuxRender (Bouchard) slides
5:10pm	Conclusions (Hachisuka) slides