Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!littlei!omepd!mipos3!rnewton
From: rnewton@mipos3.intel.com (Richard Newton)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Ray tracing vs. Scanline algorithms
Summary: which is used in the Real World
Message-ID: <3023@mipos3.intel.com>
Date: 13 Oct 88 18:12:49 GMT
Reply-To: rnewton@mipos3.UUCP (Richard Newton II ~)
Followup-To: comp.graphics
Distribution: na
Organization: Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 21



    Recently, the algorithms discussed in this group have dealt with ray
tracing. In college, my senior project was to add some features (transparency,
polygon-splitting, back-face removal, etc.) to a graphics program using a 
scan-line algorithm.

    Does anybody actually use scan-line algorithms (or anything else, other
than ray-tracing) to do actual graphics work? The big advantages of ray 
tracing is the ease of coding, but it is computationally expensive. The
most important part of a ray tracer is the intersection algorithm; is 
there now an algorithm that makes ray-tracing as fast as other algorithms?
I've been considering rewriting the scanline program in C (it is in PASCAL;
ugh!), but since all discussion on the net seems to be about ray-tracing, 
I'm wondering if I should bother.

I've never done any benchmarking of different algorithms; any info out there?

-- 
Richard Newton II	...!{decwrl|hplabs!oliveb|amd}!intelca!mipos3!rnewton
Intel Corp., 2625 Walsh Ave, Mail Stop SC4-37, Santa Clara, CA 95052-8122