Figure 1: Our light inspection tools provide key information about the light transport within virtual scenes. Introduced are, from left to right, (a) the false-color rendering, (b) spherical plot, (c) light path inspection, (d) volumetric inspection, and (e) particle flow tools. These images also represent the scenes that we used for a user study that we conducted to evaluate all tools. This paper presents novel interactive visualization techniques for inspecting the global light transport in virtual scenes. First, we propose a simple extension to photon mapping to gather required lighting information. We then introduce a set of five light inspection tools which process this data to provide further insights. Corresponding visualizations help the user to comprehend how light travels within a scene, how the lighting affects the appearance of a surface, and how objects cause lighting effects such as caustics. We implemented all tools for direct usage in real production environments. Rendering is based on progressive photon mapping, providing interactivity and immediate visual feedback. We conducted a user study to evaluate all techniques in various application scenarios and hence discuss their individual strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, we present feedback from domain experts.
REF proposed a set of light transport visualization tools for interactive exploration of scenes.
Selective Inspection and Interactive Visualization of Light Transport in Virtual Scenes
Comput. Graph. Forum
Comput. Graph. Forum
Computer Science