Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> when graphics
> people speak about "radiosity" they are referring to this other
> algorithm.

  By the way, it's curious how misunderstood this term is.

  Many people believe "radiosity" is a *rendering* algorithm (for
unimaginable reasons), and you'll quite often see eg. comparisons
of type "radiosity vs. raytracing" as if they were two mutually
exclusive rendering techniques.

  This has nothing to do with reality, of course. Radiosity is a
global illumination algorithm which is used to calculate lightmaps,
that's it. By simply running the radiosity algorithm you get no image,
just a big bunch of lightmaps. You then use these lightmaps to illuminate
the scene with whichever rendering algorithm you want (including raytracing).

  It's thus funny to see comparisons of type "radiosity vs. raytracing"
as if they were two mutually exclusive rendering techniques when you can,
in fact, use radiosity *and* raytracing to render the scene (radiosity to
precalculate the lighting, raytracing to actually render the scene).

  What these people really mean is "radiosity+scanline rendering vs.
raytracing". They imply the "scanline rendering" part when they say
"radiosity", but making this assumption is simply wrong because radiosity
does not require any specific rendering algorithm to be used.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

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