Whole Picture for Rendering

The work is much more than what I thought. I found some resources for my project.  

1. "Real-Time KD-Tree Construction on Graphics" 

2. "An Efficient GPU-based Approach for Interactive Global Illumination"

3. "Fast GPU Ray Tracing of Dynamic Meshes using Geometry Images"

This project can be divided into two parts: GPU Ray Tracing and GPU Photon Mapping.  I am not confident that I can finish this project finally. But at least I should complete the Ray tracing part. 

1. GPU Ray Tracing

It is responsible for direct illumination of the scene.

Actually, I did a CPU ray tracer last semester. But the effect is not good. There are some artifacts. I am not sure about whether improving my old work or modifying a open source ray tracer. To develop the ray tracing, I plan to combine the 1st paper and the 3rd paper. 

2.GPU Photon Mapping

It is for the global illumination. First, construct the photon map. This part is not difficult. It is similar to the ray tracing and based on "Real-Time KD Tree Construction". The most consuming may be the final gathering process. Because computing the outgoing radiance needs a lot of estimating samples. One paper tries to reduce the number of photons and the effect is good. Unfortunately, I fail to understand the details of this method. So I decide to give up it. 

 

In the following week. I will mainly focus on the Ray tracing part. Hope that I can make a great step.