Wave Tracing: Generalizing The Path Integral To Wave Optics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a bilinear path integral framework for wave optics that models interference effects, enabling more accurate and efficient simulations of wave phenomena like diffraction and long-wavelength propagation.

Contribution

It generalizes classical path integrals to include wave interference, providing a new foundation for wave-optical light transport simulation methods.

Findings

Unified framework for wave interference modeling

Efficient sampling of wave effects in complex environments

Complete system for wave tracing with elliptical cones

Abstract

Modeling the wave nature of light and the propagation and diffraction of electromagnetic fields is crucial for the accurate simulation of many phenomena, yet wave simulations are significantly more computationally complex than classical ray-based models. In this work, we start by analyzing the classical path integral formulation of light transport and rigorously study which wave-optical phenomena can be reproduced by it. We then introduce a bilinear path integral generalization for wave-optical light transport that models the wave interference between paths. This formulation subsumes many existing methods that rely on shooting-bouncing rays or UTD-based diffractions, and serves to give insight into the challenges of such approaches and the difficulty of sampling good paths in a bilinear setting. With this foundation, we develop a weakly-local path integral based on region-to-region transport using elliptical cones that allows sampling individual paths that still model wave effects accurately. As with the classic path integral form of the light transport equation, our path integral makes it possible to derive a variety of practical transport algorithms. We present a complete system for wave tracing with elliptical cones, with applications in light transport for rendering and efficient simulation of long-wavelength radiation propagation and diffraction in complex environments.