Beta Review and Future Plan

Today I had my Beta Review with Joe and Norm, and I'd say it went pretty well. Norm was generally satisfied with the results, mainly because I am able to produce a decent image at real-time with relatively very few photons, despite that various corners that has been cut and many "cheats" that I did on my side of things.

There were a few good points that came out of the conversation:

• Gaussian filtering might produce better results when doing photon gathering.
• Caching photons per surface will produce sharper corners, eliminate unintended bleeding, and speed up photon search.
• I should look into an acceleration structure now that I have random access using textures.
• I should talk to Joe about how to optimize branches on GLSL.
• I should look into Arvo's paper on caching rays on 5D space (???)

With the conversation I had this morning, and this list of features, I feel that I am in a pretty good shape to move forward and finish up a few things that I have left. Here is a list of tasks for me from now to the end of the semester

Must:

• Gaussian fall-off
• Complete global illumination with mirror and transparent materials
• Per surface photon caching (at least investigate)
• Some kind of acceleration structure (at least investigate)

Optional:

• Interactive user interface, allows user to modify scene

With the above list of tasks, I have organized them into the remaining timeline as follow:

Dec 4 - 10

• Gaussian fall-off for photon gathering
• Photon caching per surface

Dec 11 - 17

• Acceleration structure
• Reflection and refraction
• User interactivity

Dec 13 - 21

• Final user interface work
• Movie presentation