Path Tracing

Path tracing is a specialised form of raytracing, which is significantly more computationally expensive, but tends to yield a visual result slightly better than full raytracing. It is a form of raytracing where each ray of light reaching the viewer is traced back, over every possible pathway, taking into account absorption, reflection, scattering effects ? by following each possible path separately ? until the lightsource is reached.

The large number of computed paths that are discarded because they did not reach a light source are the reason for the additional overhead. However, the accuracy of path tracing makes it ideal to compare with ray tracing to see if a given ray tracer algorithm is functioning as it should.

Below, we offer a selection of links from our resource databases which may match this term.

Path Tracing

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The Symphony of Smell, A New Approach to the Sense
We have never truly succeeded at a VR scent interface. All those we have, bar none, physically release a scent into the room around the user, because we have never been able to grasp how the brain processes the sense of smell. A novel study tracing individual nerve firings with mice in controlled conditions, reveals that the actual organisation of the sense of smell is far more complex than we ever dreamed.

Managing An International Remote Development Team
How do you manage a development team that is spread all around the world? Occupying different timezones, and probably even speaking different languages? Integral Studios has been down that path, with a commericial product, and seek to share their experiences with everyone.

VR Interfaces: Wii

The Nintendo Wii - formerly the Nintendo Revolution, was formally announced at an E3 2006 press conference. The display screen lit up to a Mario game, with Mario running around, and picking up crates to throw at enemies - and the crate followed the same path onscreen.

Virtual Limbs: Living with three arms
Virtual Reality is just beginning to head down the full body sensation reproduction path. We are at the very early stages of being able to recreate parts of the physical form, entirely in the virtual. This is a concept which is likely to have very a profound effect upon how we deal with the world around us.

Show Me the Path
Linear plotlines are no good for interactive environments. Players need choices, they need different paths to follow, and they may even make their own. What are your options? How do you go about creating multiple paths, for the players to follow?

Large Image Display:Animatrix: The Second Renaissance: Mastering the Brain, to Virtually be
Here we see the end of the first machine war, in the Matrix universe. The humans have lost, badly. They were quite simply crushed under the indefatigable strength and power of the army of machines. Yet, instead of wiping their enemy out, instead we see a use very similar to the premise of the computer game Strife, or the Borg from Star Trek. It is also of course, not too dissimilar from the path we are currently on, although preferably without the war.

VR Interfaces: SportVue Heads-Up Display for motorcycle and bicycle helmets

The SportVue heads-up display for motorcycles and other motion sports is designed to augment the rider?s vision with a continuing display of computerised data about the terrain, weather warnings, their speed, and exact location on the course, without taking their eye off the path ahead.

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