Photon Map Construction Radiance Method


Photon map construction in action.

Rendering with a photon map is done in two passes: In the first pass photon maps are constructed (global and caustic maps) and in a second pass the scene is rendered with stochastic raytracing using these photon maps.

A 'Radiance' method called 'Photon Map' controls the first pass. The raytracing method 'Stochastic Raytracing' is used for the second pass. Options for the second pass are described in the documentation about stochastic ray tracing. This page describes the Photon Map Construction Radiance method options.


Photon Map Construction Control Panel

Different options are provided for controlling construction of global and caustic maps:

A global map stores all illumination information (on glossy and diffuse surfaces) and is used to limit recursion depth in stochastic raytracing:

A caustic map stores caustics (LS+D paths) which are visualized directly in the second pass: Other options:

Page maintained by the RenderPark web team
Last update: October 31, 2000