Photo-realistic rendering (PBR, as it is as well called Physically Based Rendering) is the task of using computers for producing synthetic images of digital scenes that are indistinguishable from what a real photo of that same scene would look like. It is a very challenging task which requires high quality geometric models of the objects in the scene, defining and assigning realistic materials for each of those objects, and a physically-based light propagation simulation.
The realistic simulation of light propagation is a key factor for producing photo-realistic images, since it allows computing the exact amount of light that would arrive to the camera sensors after multiple bounces and interactions with the scene objects, hence realistically reproducing a virtual photo of the scene. However, such a process is very computationally demanding, and usually requires a large amount of time and resources for producing a single image (recall that, for a movie, at least 25 images per second are required, in general).
PBR has a large set of applications, ranging from movies and computer games industry to flight simulators. A typical example of the importance of this technology is architecture, where architects could interact with a realistic visualisation of a building yet to be constructed. This allows them to eventually adapt the building to their own purposes taking into account the chosen materials and illumination considerations. Other important applications can be found in the car and aeroplane industries, etc. The impact of this technology in the society is quite relevant, since it can help companies save millions of euros in expensive real prototypes by resorting to realistic digital simulations instead.
The goal of this project has been to develop innovative methods for accelerating the synthesis of photo-realistic images. To this end, we resort to machine learning-based techniques, with a particular focus on a relatively recent approach called Bayesian Monte Carlo. These techniques permit learning from the synthesis of previous images and re-use the learned information to more efficiently compute new photo-realistic images. However, due to their complexity, a direct application of these techniques to PBR is cumbersome. This project has the general objective of making such application feasible.
During the period covered by this project, solid steps were given toward the goal described above. A publication on a top-tier journal has already been made, and others should follow in the near future. In particular, a publication on how to interactively learn local features of the incident light at each particular scene point, and another on the application of deep learning techniques to high dimensional rendering problems will mark the capstone of the research conducted within this project and could open doors for industrial applications.
