n this paper, we present a theoretical analysis of the error with three
basic Monte Carlo radiosity algorithms, based on continuous collision
shooting random walks, discrete collision shooting random walks
and stochastic Jacobi iterations. We show that the variance of these three algorithms
is in practice to very good approximation identical,
explaining empirical results obtained before. The derivation
in this paper can easily be adapted in order to calculate the variance
of other Monte Carlo rendering algorithms, such as stochastic ray tracing and
density estimation as well.
