Physics-Based Rendering
Course ID 15668
Description This course is an introduction to physics-based rendering at the advanced undergraduate and introductory graduate level. During the course, we will cover fundamentals of light transport, including topics such as the rendering and radiative transfer equation, light transport operators, path integral formulations, and approximations such as diffusion and single scattering. Additionally, we will discuss state-of-the-art models for illumination, surface and volumetric scattering, and sensors. Finally, we will use these theoretical foundations to develop Monte Carlo algorithms and sampling techniques for efficiently simulating physically-accurate images. Towards the end of the course, we will look at advanced topics such as rendering wave optics, neural rendering, and differentiable rendering.
Learning Resources
Readings will be assigned primarily from the following textbooks, which can also be useful references in general. All of them are available online from the CMU library:
Ray Tracing series (In One Weekend, The Next Week, The Rest of your Life), by Peter Shirley.
Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation, by Matt Pharr, Wenzel Jakob, and Greg Humphreys.
Advanced Global Illumination, by Philip Dutre, Philippe Bekaert, Kavita Bala.
Pre-required Knowledge
This course requires familiarity with linear algebra, calculus, programming, data structures, algorithms, and doing computations with images. In particular, either of the following courses can serve as proof that you satisfy these prerequisites:
16-385 Computer Vision, OR
16-720 Computer Vision, OR
15-462 Computer Graphics.
If you want to enroll but have not taken any of the above courses, please make sure to contact the instructor! We make a lot of exceptions each year, on a case-by-case basis.
Assessment Structure
Four two-week programming assignments (50%).
Ten take-home quizzes (20%).
Final project and rendering competition (25%).
Class participation (5%).
Extra Time Commitments
This course is for masters students. Undergraduates should enroll in 15-468. PhD students should enroll in 15-868.
Course Link
http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/courses/15-468/