  For the rendering of multiple scattering effects in participating media,
methods based on the diffusion approximation are an extremely efficient
alternative to Monte Carlo path tracing. However, in sufficiently transparent
regions, classical diffusion approximation suffers from non-physical radiative
fluxes which leads to a poor match to correct light transport. In particular,
this prevents the application of classical diffusion approximation to
heterogeneous media, where opaque material is embedded within transparent
regions. To address this limitation, we introduce flux-limited diffusion, a
technique from the astrophysics domain. This method provides a better
approximation to light transport than classical diffusion approximation,
particularly when applied to heterogeneous media, and hence broadens the
applicability of diffusion-based techniques. We provide an algorithm for
flux-limited diffusion, which is validated using the transport theory for a
point light source in an infinite homogeneous medium. We further demonstrate
that our implementation of flux-limited diffusion produces more accurate
renderings of multiple scattering in various heterogeneous datasets than
classical diffusion approximation, by comparing both methods to ground truth
renderings obtained via volumetric path tracing.
