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Photorealistic Path Tracer

thume.ca

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Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#11

Post by trishume »

spencerflem wrote: post #8
trishume wrote: post #2

Well I hoped to be on HN today for my high-effort blog post on generics and metaprogramming ( http://thume.ca/2019/07/14/a-tour-of-metaprogramming-models-... ) but at least I'm on HN for something :P Edit: And at least right before I go to bed my post technically made it on the front page in the very last slot :) I'm also glad people like my ray tracer, it was super satisfying to build, and nice to have a project tha…

Oh no way, you're Tristan Hume! My high school science research project was based on the eye tracking thing you made a while back :)

Cool, I actually wrote that eye tracking thing back when I was in high school myself. It's cool that people still find it useful, it's definitely not up to my current quality standards, but I remember scouring the internet for something like it back then and not finding anything so I guess nobody else has put something better online since.

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#12

Post by trishume »

magicalhippo wrote: post #10

One of the best books I've read on the subject is https://www.pbrt.org/ (which the article also mentions). It manages to tackle both the math and the gritty details of implementing the math. Blew me away the first time I read it.

Yah PBRT was my most important resource for completing this project, way more important than anything I learned in course lectures.

I read it cover to cover before doing much, but then made sure I wrote things how I wanted without referencing the book except for a few bits of formula-heavy code I mention in the credits.

Definitely the best technical book I've ever read.

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#13

Post by aasasd »

Apparently my senses are burned from the years of hedonism, because the “no tone mapping” pic is the one I want to touch. “Auto levels” in Gimp on the “high contrast” pic also gives a result similar to the “no mapping.”

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#14

Post by magicalhippo »

Nice work and presentation, always fun with ray tracing. Bonus points for the fractal :)

I assume you did this in RGB space, so no pretty prisms? I couldn't find any explicit mention. From the report I guess you didn't implement refraction at all?

Spectral leads to great images, but the color space conversions are such a pain to get correct.

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#15

Post by macspoofing »

I recognized the final project structure of CS488. Great class, though quite time-consuming.

The author links to past year galleries: https://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs488/gallery-A5.html

I'm not sure if this was done in all the years, but one of the interesting (and slightly unfair) aspects of the final project was that you were not only graded on the quality of the final render, but also how closely you aligned to your plan as stated up front. That is, if you planned an ambitious render BUT had to scale down to something slightly less ambitious (due to difficulty or time-constraints), your mark would be lower than the individual who planned a simple render and executed that.

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#16

Post by robbrown451 »

trishume wrote: post #2

Well I hoped to be on HN today for my high-effort blog post on generics and metaprogramming ( http://thume.ca/2019/07/14/a-tour-of-metaprogramming-models-... ) but at least I'm on HN for something :P Edit: And at least right before I go to bed my post technically made it on the front page in the very last slot :) I'm also glad people like my ray tracer, it was super satisfying to build, and nice to have a project tha…

You're in the very first slot now. Congrats, this is super impressive, both in implementation and documentation.

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#17

Post by isoprophlex »

trishume wrote: post #2

Well I hoped to be on HN today for my high-effort blog post on generics and metaprogramming ( http://thume.ca/2019/07/14/a-tour-of-metaprogramming-models-... ) but at least I'm on HN for something :P Edit: And at least right before I go to bed my post technically made it on the front page in the very last slot :) I'm also glad people like my ray tracer, it was super satisfying to build, and nice to have a project tha…

In - fucking - credible, the amount of attention to detail in your implementation and in compositing the scene.

I haven't read the meta programming thing yet but I really enjoyed reading the thing about the path tracer.

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#18

Post by [deleted] »

magicalhippo wrote: post #14

Nice work and presentation, always fun with ray tracing. Bonus points for the fractal :) I assume you did this in RGB space, so no pretty prisms? I couldn't find any explicit mention. From the report I guess you didn't implement refraction at all? Spectral leads to great images, but the color space conversions are such a pain to get correct.

[deleted]

Re: Photorealistic Path Tracer

#19

Post by isatty »

magicalhippo wrote: post #10

One of the best books I've read on the subject is https://www.pbrt.org/ (which the article also mentions). It manages to tackle both the math and the gritty details of implementing the math. Blew me away the first time I read it.

I did a ray tracing based project in high school and can also confirm that PBRT is awesome. Gets the point across really well and the authors are (was) active on the mailing list.
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