Chapter Sixteen Light Transport II: Volume Rendering

16.1 THE EQUATION OF TRANSFER

The equation of transfer is the fundamental equation that governs the behavior of light in a medium that absorbs, emits, and scatters radiation (Chandrasekhar 1960). It accounts for all of the volume scattering processes described in Chapter 11—absorption, emission, and in- and out-scattering—to give an equation that describes the distribution of radiance in an environment. The light transport equation is in fact a special case of the equation of transfer, simplified by the lack of participating media and specialized for scattering from surfaces (Arvo 1993).

In its most basic form, the equation of transfer is an integro-differential equation that describes how ...

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