Bounded clustering-finding good bounds on clustered light transport

Clustering is a very efficient technique to apply finite element methods to the computation of radiosity solutions of complex scenes. Both computation time and memory consumption can be reduced dramatically by grouping the primitives of the input scene into a hierarchy of clusters and allowing for light exchange between all levels of this hierarchy. However, problems can arise due to clustering, when gross approximations about a cluster's content result in unsatisfactory solutions or unnecessary computations. In the clustering approach for diffuse global information described in the paper, light exchange between two objects-patches or clusters-is bounded by using geometrical and shading information provided by every object through a uniform interface. With this uniform view of various kinds of objects, comparable and reliable error bounds on the light exchange can be computed, which then guide a standard hierarchical radiosity algorithm.