Rendering Participating Media with Bidirectional Path Tracing

Abstract

In this paper we show how bidirectional path tracing can be extended to handle global illumination effects due to participating media. The resulting image-based algorithm is computationally expensive but more versatile than pre- vious solutions. It correctly handles multiple scattering in non-homogeneous, anisotropic media in complex illumination situations. We illustrate its specific advantages by means of examples.