Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Plane parallel radiance transport for global illumination in vegetation

Conference ·
OSTI ID:649229

This paper applies plane parallel radiance transport techniques to scattering from vegetation. The leaves, stems, and branches are represented as a volume density of scattering surfaces, depending only on height and the vertical component of the surface normal. Ordinary differential equations are written for the multiply scattered radiance as a function of the height above the ground, with the sky radiance and ground reflectance as boundary conditions. They are solved using a two-pass integration scheme to unify the two-point boundary conditions, and Fourier series for the dependence on the azimuthal angle. The resulting radiance distribution is used to precompute diffuse and specular `ambient` shading tables, as a function of height and surface normal, to be used in rendering, together with a z-buffer shadow algorithm for direct solar illumination.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
649229
Report Number(s):
UCRL-JC--126062; CONF-970811--; ON: DE98057426; BR: YN0100000
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Investigation of the validity of the TDRC model for the distribution of diffuse sky radiance. [Three discrete radiance components]
Journal Article · Tue Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1991 · Solar Energy (Journal of Solar Energy Science and Engineering); (United States) · OSTI ID:5118783

A clear sky model of diffuse sky radiance
Journal Article · Sat Jan 31 23:00:00 EST 1987 · J. Sol. Energy Eng.; (United States) · OSTI ID:6803113

Illumination Under Trees
Conference · Mon Aug 19 00:00:00 EDT 2002 · OSTI ID:15002970