In 1993, three years before Jensen's Photon Mapping, I presented a method at NICOGRAPH called "Diffused Ray Tracing." While the industry moved toward light-source sampling and stochastic methods, this paper explored a purely deterministic, eye-path-only solution for global illumination and refractive caustics. It anticipated the sampling noise and "splotchy" artifacts that would plague light-path tracing for decades.

This work was originally featured in the Japanese edition of Noriko Kurachi's CG Magic but was omitted from the US edition as a "local report." I am sharing this English restoration to highlight how looking at GI from the eye's perspective can achieve noise-free results without post-process blurring. Implementation resources: github.com