Global Illumination: Efficient Renderer Design and Architecture

In this paper we show that developing a global illumination (GI) renderer can be made efficient through the creation of a multi-mode rendering system. Such a system should include a real-time target coupled with scene modification tools and using hierarchical scenes and bounding volumes to optimize the development cycle and run-time performance. Additional design considerations include using the ray-processor paradigm and efficient testing using reference images. We also provide examples of optimizations taking advantage of these techniques.