MAD -- A Distributed Radiosity Renderer

This document describes the theory of radiosity and an implementation of a distributed radiosity engine. Since the results from radiosity calculations are retrieved in a view independent manner, it is well suited for a realtime walkthrough engine. The program that we developed consists of two parts, both implemented using Java and Java3D. The first part deals with the distribution and execution of radiosity calculations. It is based on the progressive radiosity method, with modifications that allows it to execute in parallel distributed over a network. The second part displays the result, and lets the user walk around in scene in realtime. The main theoretical issue investigated and dealt with in this project is how to partition a scene in a way that is suited for both parallel calculations and efficient network distribution