The international computer graphics community has become fascinated with the application of artistic techniques to three dimensional computer generated imagery. But is it appropriate to apply realism to scientific and information visualization? Is it desirable?

This event examines a few photo-realistic approaches to rendering. After reviewing these techniques, it will also try to highlight the impact these methods have on gaining insight from the resulting visualization, or from the resulting visual art form.

During his presentation, Aghiles Kheffache will describe two types of synthetic images rendering algorithms: ray tracing and the REYES algorithm. He will introduce the Renderman standard as well as the 3Delight rendering software, for which he leads the development. He will finally compare 3Delight to another well known rendering package: Photorealistic Renderman.

Pierre-Félix Breton will then review different ways of simulating lighting in a 3D scene. He will describe the advantages and disadvantages of these techniques when used in real production work.