Overview:
Global Illumination models, like Ray Tracing and Radiosity, compute the color of a single point in terms of light that is directly emitted by light sources and from light that reaches the point after reflection from and transmission through its own surface and other surfaces.
This VRML2.0 world allows the user to interact with parameters of the light sources, and the objects shown, in order to allow the user to become familiar with these characteristics as they pertain to an overall Global Illumination Model.
Select the Global Illumination World link above in order to display and interact with the Global Illumination World.
Select the Definitions link above in order to gain a general knowledge of the terms used in manipulating the Global Illumination World.
System Requirements:
The Global Illumination World was written using VRML2.0.
In order to display this world your system must have a VRML browser, that is a Web browser plug in, that supports VRML2.0. You can visit the VRML Repository on the internet at http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml/ to view listings and links to vendors providing free, share-ware, or pay-ware products that support VRML2.0.
The Global Illumination World also uses JavaScripts.
In order to traverse the menus that allow you to manipulate the lighting and object paramters, your web-browser must be capable of supporting JavaScripts.
The Global Illumination World has only been tested using the Netscape version 2.01S web-browser with the Silicon Graphics, Inc. Cosmo Player plug in.
The Global Illumination World will display smoother images with better color transitions on systems that can display a multitude of colors. That is, the more colors the system can display, the better the image.
File Structure
To promote proper interactions between the HTML files, and the displaying of the VRML world in the Global HTML file, you are only required to have all 4 files (global.html, defs.html, overview.html, global.wrl) exist in the same directory.
To invoke the Global Illumination demonstration, you only need to use open file from your web browser on any of the (.html) files.