9404959 Salesin Global illumination, which simulates the interreflection of light between surfaces, is one of the most fundamental problems in computer graphics, with a wide variety of applications. During the award period, the research will be focused on three critical aspects of the global illumination problem: (1) Controlled-precision methods -- Global illumination algorithms that compute tight bounds on the error simultaneously with the simulation will be developed. These algorithms will be able to direct their computational efforts into regions where the error is largest, resulting in improvements in both speed and accuracy. (2) Improving discontinuity meshing -- Incremental discontinuity-meshing algorithms in which only numerically or visually significant discontinuities are ever computed will be investigated. Discontinuity meshing techniques are planned to be extended to curved surfaces. (3) Smooth wavelet bases for radiosity -- The discontinuity meshing will be combined with the use of smooth wavelet bases in order to provide accurate, yet sparse, representations of the light transport between the surfaces of an environment. ***
