“A hierarchical illumination algorithm for surfaces with glossy reflection” by Aupperle and Hanrahan

We develop a radiance formulation for discrete three point transport,
and a new measure and description of reflectance:area reflectance.
This formulation and associated reflectance allow an estimate of error in the computation of radiance across triples of surface elements,
and lead directly to a hierarchical refinement algorithm for global
illumination.
We have implemented and analyzed this algorithm over surfaces
exhibiting glossy specular and diffuse reflection. Theoretical growth
in light transport computation is shown to beO(n+k
3
) for sufficient
refinement, where n is the number of elements at the finest level
of subdivision over an environment consisting ofk input polygonal
patches — this growth is exhibited in experimental trials. Naive
application of three point transport would require computation over
O(n3
) element-triple interactions

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