Radiosity and Global Illumination
Résumé
Francois Sillion and Claude Puech have provided a superb book on the simulation of global illumination in computer graphics. Specifically, the authors deal with the radiosity method and Monte Carlo techniques. The authors place a far greater emphasis on the radiosity method, devoting just a short portion of the text to Monte Carlo approaches. The book places much of the recent research in the area of global illumination into a framework that is comprehensive and relatively easy for researchers in other domains, particularly various branches of engineering, to absorb. The book presumes familiarity with basic computer graphics concepts, calculus, and linear algebra. This work would be appropriate as a text for a graduate course on rendering techniques and for anyone who is interested in doing research in this area. Portions of the book could also be used to supplement an introductory course in computer graphics. While end users ofradiosity systems may well find some valuable information here, the book seems to be less useful for this particular audience, as it is primarily concerned with surveying the state of the art.