POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.unofficial.patches : Is anyone working on a distributed / stochastic / Monte Carlo ray-tracing patch for 3.7? : Re: Is anyone working on a distributed / stochastic / MonteCarloray-tracing patch for 3.7? Server Time
25 Apr 2024 11:04:40 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Is anyone working on a distributed / stochastic / MonteCarloray-tracing patch for 3.7?  
From: clipka
Date: 21 Jul 2014 18:53:51
Message: <53cd99ff$1@news.povray.org>
Am 21.07.2014 21:12, schrieb Nekar Xenos:
> On Sun, 20 Jul 2014 20:45:27 +0200, clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>
>> Am 20.07.2014 19:44, schrieb Nekar Xenos:
>>>
>>> Is anyone working on a distributed / stochastic / Monte
>>> Carloray-tracing patch for 3.7?
>>
>> Distributed raytracing patch: Planned for official POV-Ray; don't hold
>> your breath though.
>>
>> Stochastic / Monte Carlo raytracing patch: Maybe UberPOV
>> (https://github.com/UberPOV/UberPOV) already offers what you're
>> looking for; it already uses stochastic rendering for various
>> features. If stochastic global illumination is what you're after, just
>> drop me a note and I'll make that happen as well.
>>
>
> I'm not 100% sure what the correct term is, the Wikipedia entry was a
> bit confusing. I can describe it as following the ray from the light
> source to the screen. Just like MCPov, only with all of the 3.7 features.

Hmm, there's definitely some misunderstanding going on here.

"Following the ray from the light source to the screen" is /forward 
raytracing/, as opposed to following the ray from the screen to the 
object surface and ultimately to the light source, aka /backward 
raytracing/. The latter is the classic approach, and the one used by 
POV-Ray.

MCPov also uses /backward/ raytracing like POV-Ray.

/Stochastic/ raytracing can be done with both approaches (I guess it is 
the only way to do forward raytracing, but it is also a way to do 
backward raytracing), or even with combinations of the two, such as 
bidirectional raytracing, Metropolis Light Transport or some such.


So let's forget about the technical terms, and start at the other end:

What is it about MCPov that you actually want?

Blurred reflections? Definitely go for UberPOV, as it has them. Yay!

Blurred refractions? Not supported by UberPOV yet, but shouldn't be too 
difficult to add once I decide on a nice syntax.

A less artifact-prone replacement for the effect that official POV-Ray 
uses radiosity for (so-called Global Illumination)? Raise your hand, and 
I'll make it happen in UberPOV.

Render over and over again while you sit and watch, until you're happy 
with the result? Not supported in UberPOV yet; it's on the agenda, but 
may require quite some intrusion into the POV-Ray architecture. What 
UberPOV does already support, however, is an "anti-aliasing" mode (or, 
more to the point, an oversampling mode) that allows you to specify what 
quality you'd be happy with, and UberPOV will do the 
rendering-over-and-over-again in the background until the quality 
criteria are met.


As a rule of thumb, if MCPov has it, it is also planned (if not already 
implemented) for UberPOV.


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