Patent ID: 7236171
Filing Date: 2007-06-26
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
1. A computer program product comprising computer program instructions executable by a computer to provide a computer graphics system for generating a pixel value for an image using a selected ray-tracing methodology in which simulated rays are shot from the pixel into a scene, the simulated rays representing paths of simulated photons, the pixel value being representative of a point in a scene as recorded on an image plane of a simulated camera, the pixel value being useable by the computer to enable the computer to generate a display-controlling electrical output in response to the pixel value, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium having encoded thereon: A. subdomain generator, program instructions, encoded on the computer-readable medium and executable by the computer to enable the computer to, for a query point “x” in the scene, and a selected number “k” of photons, generate a set of “M” subdomains D B. subdomain photon evaluator program instructions, encoded on the computer-readable medium and executable by the computer to enable the computer to identify the subset P of subdomains which contain a point X where where X refers to a position of photon “i” projected onto the disk D along its angle of incidence ω where |P| refers to the number of sub-domains in the subset P; and along selected angle ω in accordance with, where Φ i represents the energy of the “i-th” photon.