TABLE OF CONTENTS Realistic image synthesis is a domain in the field of computer graphics that generates new images from other data. Typically, one starts from a complete description of a three-dimensional scene, specifying the size and location of objects, the material properties of all surfaces of solid objects in the scene, and the position and emission characteristics of light sources. From this data, a new picture is generated, as seen from a virtual camera placed in the scene. The aim is to make these pictures as photorealistic as possible, such that the difference with a real photograph (if the virtual scene would be constructed in reality) is not noticeable. This requires the underlying physical processes regarding materials and the behavior of light to be precisely modeled and simulated. Only by knowing exactly what one is trying to simulate does it become possible to know where simplifications can be introduced in the simulation and how this will affect the resulting pictures.
Generating photorealistic pictures is a very ambitious goal, and it has been one of the major driving forces in computer graphics over the last decades. Visual realism has always been a strong motivation for research in this field, and it is a selling point for many graphics-related, commercially available products. It is expected that this trend will continue in the coming years and that photorealism will remain one of the core fields in rendering.
Photorealistic rendering is not the only rendering paradigm that is used in...
