Natural lighting of vegetation based on polar planes

Abstract

We present a lighting method for outdoor scenes with vegetation. The method is compatible with multiresolution trees generated using random L-systems. We include a sky dome model that gets the luminance and chromaticity values at several sampling points for different time and location. The samples are used to compute the light arriving to the objects in the scene depending on the insolation conditions. The method proposed is based on the form factor and polar plane concepts. These concepts are used not only to illuminate leaves or ground, but to solve visibility problem too.