This course goes farther, and covers techniques for making realistic, complex and beautiful images. Among the topics presented are:

Sampling

Signal processing and statistical analysis of discretization in image synthesis

Ray Tracing

Ray-object intersections, CSG, acceleration techniques

Radiometry

Mathematical formulations of how light is generated and transported

Optics

The physics of light reflection and refraction, and their application to lenses

Cameras

Realistic camera models, including depth of field, motion blur and exposure

Reflection

Reflection functions (BRDF's), anisotropy and microscopic surface models

Global Illumination

Rendering equation, radiosity equation, form factors, radiosity solvers

Textures

Adding surface detail, bump maps, displacement maps

Wavelets

Multi-resolution methods to store and compute images

Volume Rendering

Methods for making images out of volumetrically-defined scenes (as opposed to surface-based descriptions of scenes, which are more common)

Non-Photorealism

Borrowing methods used by artists and illustrators, which take advantage of the human visual system and often express scene features more clearly than photorealistic approaches