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From: amamaral@elrond.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Ray Tracing & filter references
Message-ID: <628@elrond.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Feb-87 11:55:13 EST
Article-I.D.: elrond.628
Posted: Tue Feb  3 11:55:13 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Feb-87 03:56:57 EST
References: <179@ndmath.UUCP>
Organization: Calcomp Display Products Division, Hudson, NH, USA
Lines: 46
Keywords: references, ray tracing, box filters
Summary: x

In article <179@ndmath.UUCP>, milo@ndmath.UUCP (Greg Corson) writes:
> I am looking for some references on basic Ray Tracing and on image filtering
> using 3x3 and larger matrices.  I am trying to find something where algorithims
> are defined in computer-language terms rather than as complex mathmatical 
> (ie: tons of greek letters) jargon.
> :
> :
> As far as the Ray Tracing goes...I want some basic background information that
> I might be able to use to write some simple demos along the lines of mirrored
> and transparent balls and light sources with shadows.
> 
> If you could suggest any references that include code examples in C, FORTRAN
> or Pascal (or any other computer language) I would appreciate it.

Try the ACM Siggraph proceedings and course notes from the last couple
of years.  The 86 "Developments In Ray Tracing" course notes include C
code from Turner Whitted for a simple ray tracer.
> 
> One other thing...I would appreciate comments from any graphics hackers on
> the workability of splitting up complex Ray Tracing or other types of hidden
> surface rendering algorithims between a number of CPU's for speed in processing.
> I expect to have access to an ethernet with a large number (20 or more)
> of identical Unix machines and I would like to experiment with breaking a
> picture up in pieces and giving each machine a chunk to work on.

Ray Tracing lends itself WONDERFULLY to this.  You can send the
identical object database to each node, and a list of scan lines to be
traced, collect the data when each node is completed, and merge the
results.  

> Greg Corson

Writing a ray tracer skeletin is extremely simple to do, it's adding the
object intersection algorighms that is relatively difficult because you
have to figure out how to intersect some surface type with a ray and
it's not trivial in anything but trivial cases (such as spheres).  Also,
getting a shading algorithm isn't real easy (at least I haven't found it
to be) because they tend to be published with lots of greek letters that
you (and I) don't seem to like...

Good luck.
-- 
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