Radiosity

A rendering method that simulates light reflecting off one surface and onto another. It is a more accurate method of rendering light and shadows than ray tracing. Radiosity produces the soft shadows from multiple reflections and light sources that exist in the real world. See reflection mapping and ray tracing.

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Radiosity can have multiple meanings:

• Radiosity (heat transfer), in heat transfer, is the total radiation (reflected plus emitted) leaving a surface. In a cavity containing several different surfaces, it is used with a matrix calculation method to solve for all temperatures and heat exchanges between all of the surface at steady state.

• Radiosity (3D computer graphics), in 3D computer graphics is a rendering algorithm which gives a more realistic rendering of shadows and diffuse light, by applying the above approach in addition to raytracing.

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