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Ray Tracing | NVIDIA Developer

developer.nvidia.com · 1,069 words · saved by 1 readers

Ray tracing is a rendering technique that can realistically simulate the lighting of a scene and its objects by rendering physically accurate reflections, refractions, shadows, and indirect lighting. Ray tracing generates computer graphics images by tracing the path of light from the view camera (which determines your view into the scene), through the 2D viewing plane (pixel plane), out into the 3D scene, and back to the light sources. As it traverses the scene, the light may reflect from one object to another (causing reflections), be blocked by objects (causing shadows), or pass through transparent or semi-transparent objects (causing refractions). All of these interactions are combined to produce the final color and illumination of a pixel that is then displayed on the screen. This reverse tracing process of eye/camera to light source is chosen because it is far more efficient than tracing all light rays emitted from light sources in multiple directions. Another way to think of ray

Ray tracing is a rendering technique that can realistically simulate the lighting of a scene and its objects by rendering physically accurate reflections, refractions, shadows, and indirect lighting. Ray tracing generates computer graphics images by tracing the path of light from the view camera (which determines your view into the scene), through the 2D viewing plane (pixel plane), out into the 3D scene, and back to the light sources. As it traverses the scene, the light may reflect from one object to another (causing reflections), be blocked by objects (causing shadows), or pass through…

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