Mitsuba 3 is a high-performance physically based rendering framework that operates as a CPU and GPU render engine. It functions as a spectral rendering system and a differentiable path tracer, simulating the transport of light as spectral or polarized data through materials and geometry.
The system is distinguished by its differentiable rendering pipeline, which calculates derivatives of images relative to input parameters to enable inverse rendering and optimization. It utilizes a just-in-time compilation layer to transform rendering logic into optimized kernels for hardware-agnostic execution across different compute backends.
The framework covers light transport simulation and the computation of image derivatives. It also supports the development of custom rendering algorithms, allowing for the definition of specialized materials and textures that compile for high-performance execution.