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Polynomial Optics: A Construction Kit for Efficient Ray‐Tracing of Lens Systems
Author(s) -
Hullin Matthias B.,
Hanika Johannes,
Heidrich Wolfgang
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
computer graphics forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.578
H-Index - 120
eISSN - 1467-8659
pISSN - 0167-7055
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8659.2012.03132.x
Subject(s) - ray tracing (physics) , rendering (computer graphics) , computer science , wavefront , nonlinear system , computation , ray transfer matrix analysis , geometrical optics , lens (geology) , algorithm , computer graphics (images) , optics , physics , quantum mechanics
Abstract Simulation of light transport through lens systems plays an important role in graphics. While basic imaging properties can be conveniently derived from linear models (like ABCD matrices), these approximations fail to describe nonlinear effects and aberrations that arise in real optics. Such effects can be computed by proper ray tracing, for which, however, finding suitable sampling and filtering strategies is often not a trivial task. Inspired by aberration theory, which describes the deviation from the linear ray transfer in terms of wavefront distortions, we propose a ray‐space formulation for nonlinear effects. In particular, we approximate the analytical solution to the ray tracing problem by means of a Taylor expansion in the ray parameters. This representation enables a construction‐kit approach to complex optical systems in the spirit of matrix optics. It is also very simple to evaluate, which allows for efficient execution on CPU and GPU alike, including the computation of mixed derivatives of any order. We evaluate fidelity and performance of our polynomial model, and show applications in high‐quality offline rendering and at interactive frame rates.