Scattering Distribution Functions
The reflective properties (amount, direction and colour) of surfaces are modelled using BRDFs. The equivalent for transmitted light (light that goes through the object) are BSDFs. A path tracer can take full advantage of complex, carefully modelled or measured distribution functions, which controls the appearance ("material", "texture" or "shading" in computer graphics terms) of an object.
Read more about this topic: Path Tracing
Famous quotes containing the words scattering, distribution and/or functions:
“And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a Fury slinging flame.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions ... extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)