Efficient Monte Carlo rendering with realistic lenses. (1st June 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hanika, Johannes; Dachsbacher, Carsten
• Is Part Of: Computer graphics forum. Volume 33:Number 2(2014)
• Page Start: 323
• Page End: 332
• Publication Date: 2014-06-01
• Subjects: Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): -- I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three‐Dimensional Graphics and Realism—Raytracing; Computer graphics -- Periodicals; 006.605
• DOI: 10.1111/cgf.12301
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0167-7055

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper we present a novel approach to simulate image formation for a wide range of real world lenses in the Monte Carlo ray tracing framework. Our approach sidesteps the overhead of tracing rays through a system of lenses and requires no tabulation. To this end we first improve the precision of polynomial optics to closely match ground‐truth ray tracing. Second, we show how the Jacobian of the optical system enables efficient importance sampling, which is crucial for difficult paths such as sampling the aperture which is hidden behind lenses on both sides. Our results show that this yields converged images significantly faster than previous methods and accurately renders complex lens systems with negligible overhead compared to simple models, e.g. the thin lens model. We demonstrate the practicality of our method by incorporating it into a bidirectional path tracing framework and show how it can provide information needed for sophisticated light transport algorithms.