Point Cloud Rendering

I read on these forums last year that Chaos Group was researching using Point Cloud Rendering technique that’s also used in places like Pixar. What is the status of that? Can we expect to use this type of technique in the future with VRay? Right now it looks like it’s just for Renderman.

Here is an article on that:
http://features.cgsociety.org/story\_custom.php?story\_id=5615&page=1

Isn’t the irradiance/shade map practically the same as a point cloud?