In this talk we show that using a highly optimized software ray tracer we are able to achieve interactive rendering performance for highly complex models of up to 50 million triangles including reflection and shadow computations. Interactivity is achieved with a novel approach to distributed rendering based on coherent ray tracing.
Due to the drastically reduced time to trace rays, we argue that even Interactive Global Illumination finally comes into reach. However, many of todays commonly used Global Illumination algorithms do not efficiently map to such an interactive, distributed environment. Therefore, we end this talk with a discussion on requirements for future Interactive Global Illumination algorithms: We have to search for algorithms that are highly efficient, generate rays coherently, work well in parallel, require little communication, and tolerate latency.