README.md

NeRF as a Non-Distant Environment Emitter in Physics-based Inverse Rendering

Project Page | Paper | Dataset

Installation: Setup the environment

Create environment

Nerfstudio requires python >= 3.8. We recommend using conda to manage dependencies. Make sure to install Conda before proceeding.

conda create --name nerfemitter -y python=3.8
conda activate nerfemitter
pip install --upgrade pip

Dependencies

Install PyTorch with CUDA (this repo has been tested with CUDA 11.8) and tiny-cuda-nn. cuda-toolkit is required for building tiny-cuda-nn.

For CUDA 11.8:

pip install torch==2.0.1+cu118 torchvision==0.15.2+cu118 --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu118
conda install -c "nvidia/label/cuda-11.8.0" -y cuda-toolkit
pip install ninja git+https://github.com/NVlabs/tiny-cuda-nn/#subdirectory=bindings/torch

Installing nerf-emitter

git clone --recursive https://github.com/gerwang/nerf-emitter.git
cd nerf-emitter
pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
pip install -e .
conda install -y ffmpeg
imageio_download_bin freeimage

Add path to differentiable-sdf-rendering

mkdir -p $CONDA_PREFIX/etc/conda/activate.d
echo 'export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:differentiable-sdf-rendering/python' > $CONDA_PREFIX/etc/conda/activate.d/setsdfpath.sh
conda deactivate
conda activate nerfemitter

Running Experiments

Download the dataset from the release page and unzip to the project directory.

Please refer to the scripts/ directory for running the training, mesh export, novel-view synthesis and relighting.

Synthetic dataset

bash scripts/synthetic/ours/run_${object}.sh

Environment map baseline

bash scripts/synthetic/baseline/run_${object}.sh

Real dataset

Our method

bash scripts/real/ours/run_${object}.sh

Environment map baseline

bash scripts/real/baseline/run_${object}.sh

Project Structure

• differentiable-sdf-rendering/ contains our modified version of the differentiable SDF rendering code
  • assets/ contains the scene files for mitsuba3
    • integrator_sdf.xml is the configuration file for the mitsuba3 SDF renderer
    • sdf_scene.xml is the scene file
  • python/ contains the emitter and integrator plugins for mitsuba3, written in Python
    • emitters/ contains the emitter plugins
      • nerf.py converts emitter queries to NeRF evaluations
      • nerf_emitter_op.py wraps NeRF evaluation in PyTorch as a dr.CustomOp
      • vMF.py contains the implementation of the emitter importance sampling for NeRF
    • integrators/ contains the integrator plugins
      • reparam_split_light.py is the base class which splits one rendering megakernel into two
      • sdf_curvature.py computes the curvature loss
      • sdf_direct_reparam_onesamplemis.py is the main integrator
    • sensors/ contains the sensor plugins
      • spherical_sensor.py can render a environment map
    • opt_configs.py contains the configuration for the optimization
    • variables.py contains the optimization SDF and voxel grids
• nerfstudio/ contains the NeRFStudio code
  • configs/
    • method_configs.py contains the configuration for sdf-nerfacto and sdf-gt-envmap
  • data/
    • datamanagers/
      • mitsuba_datamanager.py loads images and mitsuba sensors for inverse rendering
    • dataparsers/
      • instant_ngp_dataparser.py parses the synthetic dataset
      • nerfstudio_dataparser.py parses the real dataset
  • field_components/
    • rotater.py handles the rotations of the turntable
  • model_coponents/
    • gmm_cluster_light.py clusters the light point cloud into a Gaussian mixture model
    • mi_sensor_generators.py converts NeRFStudio cameras to Mitsuba sensors
    • output_light_pc.py uses sampled rays to obtain a NeRF point cloud
  • models/
    • nerfacto.py is the modified nerf that supports HDR training
    • sdf_nerfacto.py supports batch checkpointing
  • path_guiding/ contains interfaces for importance sampling
    • path_guiding.py is the base class
    • vmf_guiding.py implements the importance sampling using vMF mixtures
  • pipelines/
    • mitsuba_sdf.py is the main pipeline for inverse rendering
  • scripts/
    • render.py renders novel-view and relighted images
    • train.py is the training script

Acknowledgement

This project is based on nerfstudio and differentiable-sdf-rendering. Thanks for these great projects.