ray-tracing's Introduction

Ray Tracing Simulator

A simple, fast and friendly program to experience the power of ray tracing.

Introduction

There are 5 basic class in the program:

rtMgr: ray tracing manager, which manages objects and lights and provides functions relating to ray tracing.
mVector: Vectors and points in the space.
mObj: A base class about objects that can be inherited to create more complicate objects(e.g. ellipsoid).
mLight: Lights in the space. The position and color are adjustable.
pixel: Used to store RGB information with normalized value.(i.e. values are in the range of 0 ~ 1)

Usage

Objects and lights should be created through pointer and be passed to rtMgr via addObj(mObj*) or addLight(mLight*).

mObj* obj = new sphere(mVector(100,200,300),250);
mLight* light = new mLight(mVector(-150,0,500),pixel(1,1,1));
mgr -> addObj(obj);
mgr -> addLight(light);

Note: You HAVE TO free these pointers in main on your own.

To develop your own object models, you can construct object classes inheriting the base class "mObj". In each class, there are two functions necessary to be defined:

double isHit(mRay&): Determine when the given ray hits the object. If there is no hitting, return -1.
mVector nVec(mVector&): Determine the normal vector at the given point. Assume the point is on the object surface.

Known Constraints

The width and height must be odd numbers.
The window is vertical to x-y plane.
The x-coordinate of the window should be greater than that of the eyes. Otherwise, the y-coordinate may be opposite.