Dwayne Jeng's Ultimate Ray Tracer
For an explanation of the history of the Ray Tracer, see my Online Journal for February 10, 2006.
Files
Note that this is currently ONLY IN WINDOWS!
trace.zip--The Ray Tracer executable as well as a slew of starter inputs. inputCommands.txt explains how to format the input.
traceEXE.zip--The Ray Tracer executable only. This is useful if you want the Ray Tracer but are not planning on using any of my starter input.
trace-renders.zip--Contains sample output from the Ray Tracer, converted in PNG format.
Sample Image Thumbnails
One of my favorites
I wanted to demonstrate texture mapping (with a picture of me!)
Demonstrating ellipsoids and intersecting objects (and a neat little mirror trick)
Disco Gumby! (everything in this image is silver; the colors are a trick of light and shadow)
A reinterpretation of a scene from an earlier assignment
Aww, how sweet!
Usage
In the command line, type:
trace [scene name]
This will read from the input TRACE file "input-[scene name].dat" and output the resulting ray trace in "image-[scene name].bmp".
TRACE File Format
See inputCommands.txt for more details.
Other Notes
- Polygonal meshes use a simplified OBJ file format, and faces MUST come after vertices.
- Textures MUST be a 24-bit BMP. Most imaging programs are capable of converting to 24-bit BMP.
- Bounding boxes are a form of Ray Trace acceleration. In most cases, you'll want to leave these on.
- A knowledge of Computer Graphics is helpful (although not required) when making input files.
Dependencies
None.
Credit
Used Professor James O'Brien's smVector, smMatrix, and smRotation libraries.
Copyright 2005-2006 Dwayne Jeng