This application demonstrates how parallel architectures are being used to render scenes in real time or close-to-real-time using physically based lighting models (in particular, radiosity). For VROOM - the Virtual Reality Room venue at SIGGRAPH 94, various interior room scenes were rendered using a parallel formulation of the Progressive Refinement algorithm.

Virtual reality is helping to determine which components of global illumination models are important to provide users with a level of realism beyond standard lighting models. Implementing the algorithms for radiosity and other physically based techniques in virtual reality helps focus the work on the areas that are most in need of improvement - for example, performance enhancements using parallel architectures, better modeling of the physics of light transport, human perception issues, and other areas.