The GUI (Graphical User Interface) software is a software built from the HQR platform which allow the user to interactively check the simulation on a given scene, and helps tuning the various parameters. Additionally the GUI is a very good application to demonstrate how the photon mapping works, displaying the photon maps and many data structures used to optimize the different parts of the simulation.
The first action consists of launching the GUI software from a shell window. This shell display messages during the different phases of the rendering kernel (light emission and transport, photon storing and ray tracer). More messages are available if the application is compiled in DEBUG mode.
Thus the first window gives an access to the data manager via the "Data Manager" tab. It is a central point of HQR where all necessary data for the rendering kernel can be loaded, and all data structures for the first pass of the photon mapping method (photon maps, photon tracer and scene graph) could be parametrized. A second window show the 3D scene.
Click on the "Load" button to load a scene and the viewer window allows the user to walk on the 3D scene, display different graphical objects (lines view, polygons view, photons view, ...). See the following figure to view the different parameters which can be tuned.
The 3D structure (a Kd-tree) is used to improve the time of intersection computations between a ray and an Indexed Face Set (IFS). It can be visualized in the viewer window. The user could walk on this structure.
The tree of the scene graph can be visualized in the "Scene" tab. It allows to access to the scene graph structure and object properties while viewing the selected object in the drawer.
The first step of the photon mapping method consists of emitting photons from the light sources and propagating them in the 3D scene. It is the role of the "Photons" tab. Tune the parameters and push the "Send more photons" button to launch the constrution of the photon maps. Photon maps are shown in the viewer window and statistics on these photon maps are shown in the "Photons" tab. See the Figure 3.12. Use the "Drawer" tab to see, for example, only caustic photons.
The 3D structure used to store photons (a Kd-tree) can be visualized in the viewer window. The user could walk on this structure.
The "Ray tracer" tab is used to create a still image (in a High Dynamic Range format) from the viewer window parameters. The produced still image can be seen using the OpenEXR display application.
Last modified on Thursday, March 16, 2005.