Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation

Physically Based Rendering introduces the concepts and theory of photorealistic rendering hand in hand with the source code for a sophisticated renderer. By coupling the discussion of rendering algorithms with their implementations, Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys are able to reveal many of the details and subtleties of these algorithms. But this book goes further; it also describes the design strategies involved with building real systems - there is much more to writing a good renderer than stringing together a set of fast algorithms. For example, techniques for high-quality antialiasing must be considered from the start, as they have implications throughout the system. The rendering system described in this book is, written in a style called literate programming that mixes text describing the system with the code that implements it. Literate programming gives an introduction to working with programs of this size. This pairing of text and code offers the most complete and in-depth book available for understanding, designing, and building physically realistic rendering systems.