Non-linear Monte Carlo Ray Tracing for Visualizing Warped Spacetime

Avirup Mandal, Kumar Ayush, Parag Chaudhuri

Abstract: General relativity describes the curvature of spacetime. Rays of light follow geodesic paths in curved space-time. Visualizing scenes containing spacetime regions with pronounced curvature requires tracing of these light ray paths. We present a Monte Carlo approach for non-linear raytracing to render scenes in curved space-time. In contrast to earlier work, we can accurately resolve ray-object interactions. This allows us to create plausible visualizations of what happens when a black hole appears in a more known environment, like a room with regular specular and diffuse surfaces. We demonstrate that our solution is correct at cosmological scales by showing how spacetime warps around a stationary Schwarzschild black hole and a non-stationary Kerr black hole. We verify that the solution is consistent with the predictions of general relativity. In the absence of any curvature in spacetime, our renderer behaves like a normal linear ray tracer. Our method has the potential to create rich

External IDs:dblp:conf/ivapp/MandalAC21