An Accurate and Practical Camera Lens Model for Rendering Realistic Lens Effects

In this paper, an accurate and practical camera lens model is proposed to be applied in realistic rendering of lens-related effects. The optical modeling of this new model is firstly presented from two aspects: lens surface modeling and formulation of ray tracing equations. Then, a number of tunable models for controlling lens properties are introduced and combined together to determine overall imaging performance. An implementation framework for this lens model is presented from two important aspects: its internal working framework and a new rendering pipeline for integrating it into a general ray tracer. In contrast to existing lens models, this new one is characterized by its ability to accurately model the image formation process and its friendly tunable models to control its lens properties. As a consequence, it is capable of simulating complex lens-related effects without too much expertise on lens optics. Finally, multiple rendering experiments are performed to demonstrate the ability and usage of this novel model to simulate a variety of complex lens-related effects.