Evaluating and Improving a Path Tracer for 3D Print Softproofing

The thesis explores the evaluation and enhancement of volumetric path-tracing for 3D softproofing, addressing a problem in the visualization of highly realistic 3D prints by polyjet printers. This work also improves the proposed volumetric renderer by implementing surface roughness into the process. We begin by measuring already printed objects using a spectrophotometer and spectroradiometer. The measurements are then compared to renderings done by the Mitsuba renderer and our volumetric renderer. The comparison is validated through the usage of the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and ΔE2000 Error metric. Additionally, we propose an algorithm to estimate the surface roughness given the patch measurements, which improves the roughness’s usability. Further, we apply the renderer to tonal linearization, which previously needed to be done with physical models.