The zonal method for calculating light intensities in the presence of a participating medium

Abstract

The zonal method for calculating radiative transfer in the presence of a participating medium is applied to the generation of realistic synthetic images. The method generalizes the radiosity method and allows for emission, scattering, and absorption by a participating medium. The zonal method accounts for volume/surface interactions which have not been previously included, as well as volume/volume and surface/surface interactions. In addition, new algorithms, based on the hemi-cube formulation, are introduced for calculating the geometric factors required by the zonal method.