Real-time Raytracing

by Sam Gross and Adam Lerer

 

Abstract

Raytracing is a 3D graphics algorithm used to generate extremely photorealistic images. At each pixel of the screen, a raytracing algorithm finds the ray that goes from the viewers eye through that pixel, and determines which object in the scene that ray intersects with. A color for the pixel is determined by properties of the intersected object and the relationship between the intersection and the lights in the scene using ambient, diffuse, and specular shading models. To calculate reflections, the algorithm adds the color of a ray reflected off the intersection point to the color of the pixel. Although raytracing is very time-consuming in software, the fact that each pixel is computed independently makes it highly parallelizable. We intend to take advantage of this parallelizability in hardware to make a fast - hopefully real-time - raytracing algorithm that will allow camera movement or animation with real-time rendering.

 

Links To Files

Report Appendix (PDF)

 

Photos