A technique used in computer graphics to create realistic images by calculating the paths taken by rays of light entering the observer's eye at different angles. The paths are traced backwards from the viewpoint, through a point (a pixel) in the image plane until they hit some object in the scene or go off to infinity.
Subcategories 5
Related categories 2
Sites 20
- Ray Tracing News Guide Lots of information on ray tracing. Updated once or twice a year.
- Lightflow Rendering Interface An object oriented library with API in C++ and Python for synthetic rendering, which provides a common environment and description language to treat light distribution in three dimensional spaces. Available for Linux and Windows.
- Internet Raytracing Competition Regular awards for best raytraced still images and animations submitted by the public. Recent winners, voting on the current round, and the topic and rules for submitting to the next round.
- YASRT Raytracer A simple raytracer in development, it supports the basic features of a raytracer along with multi-threading. Many platforms are supported (Win32, Linux, and iPAQ).
- Radiance A raytracer trying to aid lighting designers and architects by predicting the light levels and appearance of a space prior to construction. It uses a hybrid approach of Monte Carlo and deterministic ray tracing. Available for Unix.
- Raytressi Ray tracing library written in c++ with python bindings. Source code, documentation, galleries, tutorials available. Binaries for Windows, seems to be portable to Unix platforms.
- RayTraccio A Java ray-tracer running as a applet that wants to be simple and clean but nonetheless has some advanced features.
- FuzzyPhoton - The Raytracing Repository Information about raytracing in general, with a how-to section and an A-Z reference. Technical articles and a gallery of images renderd with the VRWorld4 raytracer developed by the author, and humour.
- CoolRay Open Source Raytracer with a scene description language that provides constructs for programming like loops and functions. Its written in C++ and runs on Windows and Linux/Unix.
- vlib An open source volume modeling and rendering library for unix. The interface facilitates the majority of significant developments in the field to date.
- Realistic Image Synthesis Engine R.I.S.E. is an open source global illumination renderer for producing physically and biologically based photo realistic images. Product specifications, gallery, documentation, and downloads. [Windows, Linux, SunOS, Irix 6.5, Sun Solaris]
- Flamingo Plug-in for Rhino, uses both raytracing and radiosity to create single-frame images and animations. Product description, gallery, training, evaluation download, and purchasing. For Windows.
- Bagisas A GUI the YAFRAY raytracer written in Python. Downloads, screenshots, and FAQ. Available for Linux and Windows.
- Ray Tracing Introduction from SIGGRAPH A basic introduction to building a ray tracer, with some pointers to more advanced subjects at the end.
- The Rearview Rendering Engine A game engine aiming towards three dimensional computer graphics which fits both human perception and the shape of the real world better than common polygon engines do. Linux.
- Chuck's Ray Tracing Software Personal page with links to programs for modeling, Ray tracing, converting, and animating. Plus models for various ray tracers. Windows, MacOS and Unix.
- GRT Raytracer Raytracing system written in Common Lisp. It trys to become good classical raytracer: reasonably efficient, with a good selection of primitives, advanced texturing capabilities, animation support, and probably integration of the scripting environment with some GUI tools.
- Tachyon Parallel / Multiprocessor Ray Tracing System A ray tracer distributed as C source, supporting almost every Unix version, Windows NT and Mac OSX.
- Ray tracing in Wikipedia An overview non technical article on ray tracing also covering some history of the subject.
- Realtime Raytracing Maillist Discuss programming techniques, algorithms and productions related to realtime raytracing, both software or hardware based.