System and process for image-based relativistic rendering

A system for simulating how at least one sequential pixel-based image of a scene would be viewed by an observer traveling at any desired viewing velocity, comprising:

• a general purpose computing device;
• and
• a computer program comprising program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to:
• (a) represent each pixel with a corresponding light ray by defining each light ray as a unit three-dimensional vector with respect to a position of each pixel within each image, a field of view of each image, a width and height of each image, and a point from which each image is captured,
• (b) transform each light ray from an initial inertial reference frame representing each image to a new inertial reference frame representing the observer, and
• (c) map each pixel to a location in the new inertial reference frame where each corresponding light ray intersects a view port of the observer.

A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for transforming at least one sequential pixel-based image, said computer executable instructions comprising:

• representing each image pixel with a light ray by defining each light ray as a unit three-dimensional vector with respect to a position of each pixel within each image, a field of view of each image, a width and height of each image, and a point from which each image is captured;
• transforming each light ray via a Lorentz Transformation between an initial inertial reference frame and a new inertial reference frame based on a relative velocity between the initial inertial reference frame and the new inertial reference frame;
• mapping each pixel to a location in the new inertial reference frame where each corresponding transformed light ray intersects a viewing plane;
• and
• Doppler shifting each image pixel based on the relative velocity between the initial inertial reference frame and the new inertial reference frame.