Ray Tracer

A Ray Tracer Renderer using C++. This project is aimed at helping me understand the fundamentals of Ray-tracing and how it works.

Links:

• Site page, with a small write-up with issues I've faced with multi-threading

Features

• Implementation of all features included in Ray Tracing In One Weekend
  • Spheres
  • Surface Normals
  • Antialiasing
  • Diffuse Materials
  • Metal
  • Dielectrics
  • Positionable Camera
  • Defocus Blur (“depth of field”)

• PNG image output
• Multi-Threading (with C++ STD and OpenMP)
• Render Time Information (ms)

Installation + Build

This program has been tested on Pop OS and MacOS but should work under any system that has cmake and a C++ compiler installed. (Clion, Visual Studio)

Once project files are downloaded and you are currently in the project directory, you can generate the Makefile using the following command:

mkdir build
cd build/
cmake ..

Additionally in the CMakeLists.txt you can enabled different types of rendering, by default its single threaded.

Remove '#' to enable feature
#add_compile_definitions(MTHREAD)
#add_compile_definitions(MTHREAD_V2) 
#add_compile_definitions(ENABLE_MP) <-- OpenMP Render
#add_compile_definitions(MTHREAD_TILE) <--- Tile MT Render

Now you can build the binary by running:

make

To generate the image, run the output binary in the terminal/cmd, which will result in the file appearing in the "images" folder

Project status

On Hold

Roadmap

• Project Refactoring
• SDL Project conversion
• Runtime Rendering (being able to move the camera in a graphics window)

Authors

• Laurence Sadler - SirLorrence

Built with

• Tiny PNG Output - to write PNG file
• OpenMP

License

This code is released under the MIT License.

References

• Ray Tracing in One Weekend
• An Overview of the Ray-Tracing Rendering Technique
• 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development. - Digitial and Physical
• ChatGPT - How to create a CMake file and cryptic compiler errors
• Adobe | What is a PPM file?