What is Ray Tracing?

Generally speaking, ray tracing is a "physically accurate" simulation of how light interacts with different surfaces, volumes and a camera. At the core of ray tracing are the rendering equation and all of the mathimatical equations that describe ray-entity intersection and interactions like diffusion, reflection, and refraction.

Limitations

While this demo may look quite incredible, it is NOT completely physically accurate because it doesn't simulate the wave properties of light. Some missing features include:

• Diffraction
• Dispersion
• Polarization
• Phosphorescence
• Interference
• Flourescence (although this is easy to add)
• The Doplar Effect (although not super applicable)

Nevertheless, it does support the major and most noticable features of light interaction, lncluding:

• Diffusion - light scattering on rough surfaces
• [Specular] Reflection - perfect light reflection
• Refraction - light bending/splitting when it passes between different refraction indices

Another major limitation of this demo is that it can only render a limited number of surfaces. More professional rendering applications allow for a multitude of shapes/volumes to be used.

Further Learning

Why stop here? Wikipedia has much more information than I can put on this page! Also check out the credits page for other resources used in the making of this project.