Bringing deep learning to big screen animation

Modern films and TV shows are filled with spectacular computer-generated sequences computed by rendering systems that simulate the flow of light in a three-dimensional scene and convert the information into a two-dimensional image. But computing the thousands of light rays (per frame) to achieve accurate colour, shadows, reflectivity and other light-based characteristics is a labour-intensive, time-consuming and expensive undertaking. An alternative is to render the images using only a few light rays. That saves time and labour but results in inaccuracies that show up as objectionable "noise" in the final image. UC Santa Barbara electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student Steve Bako and his advisor, Pradeep Sen, are advancing on a solution.