Research Rendering Engine (Self-Importance Samplers)

This engine started as the renderer I wrote for my graduate Photorealistic Rendering Algorithms class. The final project was a rendering competition which my teammate Matthew Georgy and I won! The highlight of the engine was a multiplexed Metropolis Light Transport (MMLT) integrator (which I later built an interactive visualizer for) that also handles homogeneous volumes.

If you want to know more about what went into the competition entry, here are the slides from our presentation.

Since finishing the class, I've occasionally extended it and used it as a place to prototype and learn new algorithms. Generally I prefer to implement things in mr-sanders, my production-style renderer. But for things that aren't really appropriate for a production renderer yet are still interesting (e.g. complex light transport like gradient-domain or bidirectional methods), I'll use this engine to experiment instead.

Favourite renders

Below are some of my favourite renders generated using this engine!