Cre gory J. Ward Franc" M. Rdin , ft,1 'n Rob ert D. Clt arLigAting S1, tem, R u tGrcA Lawr enee Ber keley L aboratory 1 e ye/atrllft Rd ., 9().3111 B erl:t.lt,1 , CA 94 7£0 ( / 15) , S6 -, 757 Abs tn .ct An efficient. ray tr acing met hod is pre se nted for calcul ating inte rrefleerions betw een s ur faces wit h bot h diffuse an d spec ulai' co mpone nts. A Mont e Car lo t echn ique co mp utes t he indi rect co nt r ibutions to illum inan ce a.t locat ions chosen by th e rendering proc ess. Th e ind irect illu m inan ce values ar e a verage d ove r surfac es and used in place of a cOM ta n t " amb ient." te rm . Illumin an ce calculations are mad e only (or th ose are as par t icipati ng in t he selec ted vi ew, an d the results are sto red so t hat subse quent views can re use co mmon valu es . Th e den sity of th e cal culati on is ad ju ste d to m aintain a cons tan t. ac cu racy , perm ittin g less popu lated po rt icna of t he sce ne to be co mpute d quickly . Succ essive reflections use pro por tional ly fewer sa mples , whi ch spe eds t he process and pro vides a natur al lim it to recurs ion . Th e tec hni que can also mode l diffuse t rans mission and illumina t ion fro m lar ge aru $()U fCe8, such as t he sky .Ge neral T erms : Algorithm , com plexity .Add it ion al K eyword s a nd Ph rases : Cac hing, diffuse, illu minan ce, int erre ftectio n , lu minan ce, Mo nte Car lo tec hnique , rad iosity , ray t rac ing, rend erin g, spec ular . 1. In tr oduc.tion © 1988 ACM .(}.. 89191·275-6/ 88/008/0085 $00. 75 85 R o =. "average"distanceto surfaces at PoTh e ch~ge in % becom es th e di stance betw een two pointe, and t he chan ge In ebecomes th e angl e betw een two eurfeee norm als. Th is equation is use d to est imate t he rela t ive change in illuminance for any geometry . Bo t h th e po ints and t he surface nor mals~determin ed by t.he ray interse ct-i on calcu latio n . R 0 is the harm on ic mean (reciprocal mean reciproca l) of distance!l to visible surfaces, which can be computed (rom ray lengt hs during prim ary eval uat ion . 87 10 . NI8bit.a, TOmoyuD and Eihacbiro Nakamae , uCoatlo\lOUl TOIle Repneentatioo. 01 Tbree--Dimenaioaal Objectc Taki.a.1 A«ount 01 SbadOWfland Iaterre 8ectioD," 0 0".