Chapter 4
Ray Tracing
One of the basic tasks of computer graphics is rendering three-dimensional objects: taking a scene, or model, composed of many geometric objects arranged in 3D space and producing a 2D image that shows the objects as viewed from a particular viewpoint. It is the same operation that has been done for centuries by architects and engineers creating drawings to communicate their designs to others.
Fundamentally, rendering is a process that takes as its input a set of objects and produces as its output an array of pixels. One way or another, rendering involves considering how each object contributes to each pixel; it can be organized in two general ways. In object-order rendering, each object is considered in turn, and for each ...
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