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From: amamaral@elrond.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: AmigaWorld Ray-Tracing Article:  Algrothm complexity
Message-ID: <832@elrond.CalComp.COM>
Date: Wed, 6-May-87 10:53:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: elrond.832
Posted: Wed May  6 10:53:31 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 8-May-87 03:50:19 EDT
References: <1514@sphinx.uchicago.edu> <804@elrond.CalComp.COM> <312@pembina.UUCP> <750@puff.WISC.EDU>
Organization: Calcomp, A Lockheed Company, Hudson, NH, USA
Lines: 58

In article <750@puff.WISC.EDU>, upl@puff.WISC.EDU (Future Unix Gurus) writes:
> In article <820@elrond.CalComp.COM> amamaral@elrond.CalComp.COM (Alan Amaral) writes:
> >
> >Look at it this way: Would you rather have a volkswagon that you can
> > ...
> >Me, I'll take the volkswagon. I've got places to go...
> 
> Come on, you're being facitious aren't you? A slight extension of your own
> argument defeats this point. IF I have a LONG way to go, then obviously
> there will be a break even point, after which the time to buy the Ferrari
> is LESS than the time to drive there with the volkswagon.

Of course.  I agree with you totally, but you have to agree that the
break even point is NOT minimal.  Of course if the Ferrari is limited to
55... :-)

> In my original article (which started all this) I was talking about 
> movie making techniques, I

Yes, I understand that todays computers aren't appropriate for rendering
very high quality images (i.e. ray traced, rendering equation,
radiosity, etc.) for movie purposes.  Neither, for that matter, are todays
storage media.  A 100 minute fully rendered movie would consume (at
1kx1k) approximately 1.5x10^11 bytes, or 144 gigabytes. At 4kx4k which
is a little more realistic that figure comes out to 2.4x10^12 bytes,
or 2.3 TERAbytes. That's roughly 5053 RA81 drives!!!

However, in the future (really the present if you look around a little)
you will be able to buy a highly parallelized matrix processor that will
render a ray traced scene in real time, or close enough to real time to
be usefull.  I say the present because there is company that sells a
system with something like 300 transputers that will ray trace a simple
1kx1k scene in under 10 seconds.  Ray tracing and the rendering equation
both lend themselves quite elegantly and easily to this kind of solution.

> >> >I'll just about guarantee that my ray tracer...
> But not fast enought to be of ANY use to me. (Honestly, however, I don't think
> it is POSSIBLE to ray trace fast enough on a 68000 for movies.)

It also probably wasn't possible to play PACMAN on the ENIAC because it
was too slow, but it's possible today on a jillion different computers
that you can buy with pocket change. (Geez, you can buy a Timex/Sinclair
for $15.00 and it would probably run rings around the ENIAC! What's this
world coming to? ;-) )

As I have said on several occaisions, If you have the time and the CPU
use ray tracing,  if not, then use what you can.  I never said that ray
tracing is the be-all and end-all of computer graphics, just that it has
it's place, and that I wish that people would stop bashing on it.

> Jeff Kesselman


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