Resources

source code

Depending on your interests, one of the two most recent versions of pbrt is likely to be most suitable.

• The pbrt-v4 implementation, corresponding to the version of pbrt described in the forthcoming fourth edition of the book, is available from github. It is the most modern version of pbrt and includes state-of-the-art support for volume rendering, spectral rendering, support for rendering on the GPU, and much more. However, the only documentation currently available for it is the source code, the User's Guide, and the scene file format reference.
• The implementation of pbrt-v3, the version of the system for the third edition of the book (released in 2016) is available from github. (If you don't want to use git, the latest source code is available as a zip file.) See the User's Guide for more information about building and using the system. It is fully documented in the print book and the online edition.

example scenes

A variety of interesting scenes are available for rendering with pbrt.

For pbrt-v4:

• The pbrt-v4-scenes repository on github has over 20 complex scenes that show off a variety of pbrt's capabilities.
• Benedikt Bitterli’s rendering resources web page has a number of nice scenes in pbrt's format.
• Jim Price has created a number of impressive scenes for pbrt that feature complex volumetric scattering effects.
• Jim Price has also created a Menger sponge for pbrt that is comprised of over 10 trillion boxes via clever use of object instancing.

For pbrt-v3:

• We have assembled over 8GB of interesting scenes.
• The Digital Emily model is available in pbrt's format, thanks to Haarm-Pieter Duiker.

mailing list

There is a pbrt users mailing list that can be a helpful resource for information about the system. We also occasionally post pbrt-related announcements to this list.

supplemental sections

Now and again, we write up literate programs describing implementations of additional rendering algorithms and make them available for download.

So far, we have:

• The Implementation of a Hair Scattering Model.
• The Implementation of a Scalable Texture Cache.

scene exporters

A number of exporters are available to convert scenes from other 3D file formats to pbrt's format. The highly-capable assimp system is now able to export to the pbrt-v4 format, which provides an effective pipeline from FBX, OBJ, and numerous other formats into pbrt's.

Other exporters include:

• A Blender exporter for pbrt-v3 has been developed by Giulio Jiang (github page).
• A Blender exporter for pbrt-v4 is under development by Stig Atle Steffensen.
• Jim Price has developed exporters from SideFX's amazing Houdini system, both for pbrt-v3 and for pbrt-v4.
• An exporter from Cinema4D to pbrt-v3 is included in the pbrt-v3 distribution.
• PBRTForMaya a Maya plugin to export scenes in pbrt-v3's format, developed by Haarm-Pieter Duiker
• RenderToolbox, is a MatLab toolbox for working with pbrt scenes.

sample chapters

Two chapters of earlier editions of the book are available for download: you can download both Chapter 7, Sampling and Reconstruction, from the first edition of the book as well as Chapter 4, Primitives and Intersection Acceleration from the second edition. The full contents of the third edition are freely available online.

old versions of pbrt

The implementation of pbrt-v2, the version of the system that accompanies the second edition of the book (from 2010), is also available from github. See the page on building pbrt-v2 for instructions for how to build pbrt on your system. A number of interesting scenes are also available to use with pbrt-v2.

The source code for the version of pbrt that accompanied the first edition of the book (in 2004) is also available from github. It's only useful for historical purposes at this point; the versions of the system that shipped with subsequent editions of the book have numerous improvements.