Introduction

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Introduction

Welcome to my book. I am happy that you can sit down and spend some time with me. This book introduces photon mapping to an intermediate graphics programmer. This book is not as easy as reading a "how to" or "dummies" book because it deals with some of the more complex concepts in 3D graphics. The Focus On prefix on the book cover is an indication that the book concentrates on a specific subject in detail. The book begins with an explanation of the nature of light and the many natural lighting effects. It then discusses applying lighting to computers by using rendering algorithms such a ray tracing and photon mapping. If you read this book you should get an idea of how to implement ray tracing as well as photon mapping. It's best not to jump to photon mapping without understanding the basic foundation of ray tracing; think of it as a building-block process.

Henrik Wann Jensen invented the photon-mapping algorithm. His motivation was to create a rendering algorithm that had all the positive aspects of ray tracing and radiosity without any of their inherent problems. Many other scientists and college graduates have shared this same goal. The key to Jensen's success was that his algorithm is much simpler than radiosity and includes many features of ray tracing. Jensen's book, Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon Mapping (ISBN 1-56881-147-0), provides a detailed look at pho-ton mapping from a mathematical perspective. It explains other topics that aren't covered in this book, such as filtering, irradiance, caching, and participating media. This book is a more practical application because it shows you how to develop photon mapping from the ground up. It's also different in that I don't focus exclusively on photon mapping; I also explain the nature of light as well as ray tracing.

To get the most out of this book, you should have some experience using graphics. Learning about 3D graphics isn't an overnight task[md]it takes many years to master. There is so much information out there you can never stop learning. This book is best suited for someone who understands the basic fundamentals about 3D graphics[md]someone, for example, who has written a rendering program like a ray tracer or a video game using his/her own libraries or DirectX and OpenGL. You must know C and it's a good idea to know C++ because I use it a little bit. I purposely write the photon mapping code in C because I don't want to alienate C programmers who just want the code for their programs.

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