This CD-ROM accompanies the dissertation entitled "Efficient and predictive realistic image synthesis" by Karol Myszkowski. The CD-ROM includes visual materials which could not be properly presented in the dissertation because of the printing technology limitations. While the dissertation can be read without referring to the CD-ROM, in many cases the visual effects described in the text can be seen easier using the material in its digital form. The organization of the CD-ROM strictly follows the one of the dissertation. To simplify the navigation through the CD-ROM the material is split into separate parts corresponding to the dissertation chapters. The order of color figures, their indexing and captions are the same as in the dissertation. The graphs and grey-tone figures whose readability was fine in the printed version are not repeated on the CD-ROM. Some additional visual materials that are not explicitly mentioned in the dissertation text are occasionally included on the CD-ROM. In this case detailed explanations are also presented.
The CD-ROM also includes copies of two Web pages with some extension materials developed or co-developed by the author. Originally the Web pages are publicly available under the following URLs: http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/resources/vdp and  http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/resources/atrium (connection to the Internet is required to activate those links). Those Web pages are not the integral part of this dissertation but are included merely for the convenience of interested readers.

The navigation through the visual material on the CD-ROM should be performed using a standard Web browser such as Netscape or Explorer. The navigation should be started from uploading the file index.html  (currently visible file) which is located in the main directory of the CD-ROM. Then a link to a chosen chapter must be activated to access the visual material corresponding to this chapter. While for browsing text and static images basic functionality of every standard Web browser is sufficient, for animation rendering a specialized viewer supporting QuickTime format must be installed as a plug-in for web browsers. Such plug-ins are available under the URL: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/  (connection to the Internet is required to activate this link).
 

Visual materials corresponding to Chapters 3-7 can be accessed using the following links:
 

Chapter 3: Global Illumination Methods

Chapter 4: Storage and Reconstruction of Lighting Distribution

Chapter 5: Perception-Driven Global Illumination and Rendering Computation

Chapter 6: Perception-Driven Rendering of High Quality  Walkthrough Animations

Chapter 7: Validation of Global Illumination and Rendering Solutions