Hi Felix, also re:

> Basically, I'm looking for reference material (books and or
> papers) that are use currently as teaching material in
> university level programs on 3D design and or whatever
> programs where rendering photo realistic scene is a
> prerequisite or that is part of the main program.

I'm not so sure that this kind of material is actually very easy to find...

One problem is that university programs that focus a lot of effort on 3D design also tend to revolve around 3D programs that incorporate a whole lot of functions in them, including things like animation and motion dynamics, etc... Such programs that do a lot of things are just by their very nature more complex to use so they're probably not the right choice for you despite having a lot of reference material on them.

The renderer that Pilou mentioned, Podium, runs inside of SketchUp which you're already familiar with so that might work well for you, I think there is a trial version you can get from here: http://www.suplugins.com/supodium-v2.php

Giving both Podium and SimLab Composer a try to see if they will work for you is probably a good start.

- Michael