Global illumination using shared lighting contributions for interactions in path tracing

A system comprising:

• one or more processing units to execute operations comprising:
• comparing a location of an interaction of a light transport path within a virtual environment with one or more criteria defining a region in the virtual environment that corresponds to a cache, the one or more criteria indicating radiant power for the interaction is similar in magnitude to radiant power at least one or more other interactions that have one or more samples of the radiant power stored in the cache;
• based at least on the comparing indicating the location falls within the region, using the one or more samples stored in the cache as at least one sample of the radiant power for the interaction to determine radiance at the interaction in the light transport path;
• determining radiance of the light transport path using the radiance at the interaction;
• and
• generating a rendered frame using the radiance of the light transport path.

A processor comprising:

• one or more circuits to render an image using radiance of a light transport path that is determined using radiance at an interaction of the light transport path within a virtual environment, the radiance at the interaction determined based at least on:
• comparing one or more characteristics of the interaction with one or more criteria corresponding to a cache, the one or more criteria indicating radiant power at the interaction is similar in magnitude to radiant power at each of one or more other interactions within the virtual environment that have one or more samples of the radiant power stored in the cache;
• and
• based at least on the comparing indicating the one or more characteristics satisfy the one or more criteria, using the one or more samples stored in the cache as at least one sample of the radiant power for the interaction to determine the radiance at the interaction in the light transport path.