 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(October 2017) |
False Radiosity is a 3D computer graphics technique used to create texture mapping for objects that emulates patch interaction algorithms in radiosity rendering. Though practiced in some form since the late 90s, this term was coined only around 2002 by architect Andrew Hartness, then head of 3D and real-time design at Ateliers Jean Nouvel.
3D computer graphics or three-dimensional computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. Such images may be stored for viewing later or displayed in real-time.
Rendering or image synthesis is the automatic process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of computer programs. Also, the results of displaying such a model can be called a render. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a digital image or raster graphics image file. The term "rendering" may be by analogy with an "artist's rendering" of a scene.
An architect is a person who plans, designs and reviews the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that have human occupancy or use as their principal purpose. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, which derives from the Greek, i.e., chief builder.
During the period of nascent commercial enthusiasm for radiosity-enhanced imagery, but prior to the democratization of powerful computational hardware, architects and graphic artists experimented with time-saving 3D rendering techniques. By darkening areas of texture maps corresponding to corners, joints and recesses, and applying maps via self-illumination or diffuse mapping in a 3D program, a radiosity-like effect of patch interaction could be created with a standard scan-line renderer. Successful emulation of radiosity required a theoretical understanding and graphic application of patch view factors, path tracing and global illumination algorithms. Texture maps were usually produced with image editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop. The advantage of this method is decreased rendering time and easily modifiable overall lighting strategies.
In radiative heat transfer, a view factor, , is the proportion of the radiation which leaves surface that strikes surface . In a complex 'scene' there can be any number of different objects, which can be divided in turn into even more surfaces and surface segments.
Path tracing is a computer graphics Monte Carlo method of rendering images of three-dimensional scenes such that the global illumination is faithful to reality. Fundamentally, the algorithm is integrating over all the illuminance arriving to a single point on the surface of an object. This illuminance is then reduced by a surface reflectance function (BRDF) to determine how much of it will go towards the viewpoint camera. This integration procedure is repeated for every pixel in the output image. When combined with physically accurate models of surfaces, accurate models of real light sources, and optically correct cameras, path tracing can produce still images that are indistinguishable from photographs.
Global illumination, or indirect illumination, is a general name for a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes. Such algorithms take into account not only the light that comes directly from a light source, but also subsequent cases in which light rays from the same source are reflected by other surfaces in the scene, whether reflective or not.
Another common approach similar to false radiosity is the manual placement of standard omni-type lights with limited attenuation in places in the 3D scene where the artist would expect radiosity reflections to occur. This method uses many lights and can require an advanced light-grouping system, depending on what assigned materials/objects are illuminated, how many surfaces require false radiosity treatment, and to what extent it is anticipated that lighting strategies be set up for frequent changes.
