An Ongoing Visual Assessment of Three-dimensional Light Flow Expressed Through Volume Photon Mapping

A new method of expressing three-dimensional light flow in architectural spaces is presented using the RADIANCE volume photon mapping extension. This light transport simulation algorithm is not bound to surfaces and can therefore visualise the volumetric light distribution taking into account luminance, direction, and colour. Our method derives a physical light field from this distribution, which will serve as a reference for a series of ongoing experiments at the Tokyo University of Science to evaluate the corresponding visual light field using human observers. The goal of the experiments is to determine the accuracy with which the observers can predict the physical light field given visual cues such as shading, contrast, and reflected colour in a real scene.