Ray Tracing

Ray Casting
Ray-Surface Intersections
Barycentric Coordinates
Reflection and Transmission
[Shirley, Ch.9]
Ray Tracing Handouts

Announcements
Assignment 2 Grades Returned
Assignment 3 Out Today

1
Local vs. Global Rendering Models
Local rendering models (graphics pipeline)
Object illuminations are independent
No light scattering between objects
No real shadows, reflection, transmission
Global rendering models
Ray tracing (highlights, reflection, transmission)
Radiosity (surface interreflections)

Object Space vs. Image Space

Graphics pipeline: for each object, render
Efficient pipeline architecture, on-line
Difficulty: object interactions
Ray tracing: for each pixel, determine color
Pixel-level parallelism, off-line
Difficulty: efficiency, light scattering
Radiosity: for each two surface patches,
determine diffuse interreflections
Solving integral equations, off-line
Difficulty: efficiency, reflection

2
Forward Ray Tracing
Rays as paths of photons in world space
Forward ray tracing: follow photon from light
sources to viewer
Problem: many rays will
not contribute to image!

Backward Ray Tracing

Ray-casting: one ray from center of projection
through each pixel in image plane
Illumination
1. Phong (local as before)
2. Shadow rays
3. Specular reflection
4. Specular transmission
(3) and (4) are recursive

3
Shadow Rays
Determine if light really hits surface point
Cast shadow ray from surface point to light
If shadow ray hits opaque object,no contribution
Improved diffuse reflection

Reflection Rays
Calculate specular component of illumination
Compute reflection ray (recall: backward!)
Call ray tracer recursively to determine color
Add contributions
Transmission ray
Analogue for transparent or
translucent surface
Use Snells laws for refraction
Later:
Optimizations, stopping criteria

4
Ray Casting
Simplest case of ray tracing
Required as first step of recursive ray tracing
Basic ray-casting algorithm
For each pixel (x,y) fire a ray from COP through (x,y)
For each ray & object calculate closest intersection
For closest intersection point p
Calculate surface normal
For each light source, calculate and add contributions
Critical operations
Ray-surface intersections
Illumination calculation

Recursive Ray Tracing

Calculate specular component
Reflect ray from eye on specular surface
Transmit ray from eye through transparent surface
Determine color of incoming ray by recursion
Trace to fixed depth
Cut off if contribution
below threshold

5
Angle of Reflection
Recall: incoming angle = outgoing angle
r = 2(l n) n l
For incoming/outgoing ray negate l !
Compute only for surfaces
with actual reflection
Use specular coefficient
Add specular and diffuse
components

Refraction
Index of refraction is relative speed of light
Snells law
l = index of refraction for upper material
t = index of refraction for lower material [U = ]

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Raytracing Example

www.povray.org

Raytracing Example

rayshade gallery

7
Raytracing Example

rayshade gallery

Raytracing Example

www.povray.org

8
Raytracing Example

Saito, Saturn Ring

Raytracing Example

www.povray.org

9
Raytracing Example

www.povray.org

Raytracing Example

rayshade gallery

10
Raytracing Example

Graphics project 3, Spring 2004

Intersections

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Ray-Surface Intersections
General implicit surfaces
General parametric surfaces
Specialized analysis for special surfaces
Spheres
Planes
Polygons
Quadrics
Do not decompose objects into triangles!
CSG is also a good possibility

Rays and Parametric Surfaces

Ray in parametric form
Origin p0 = [x0 y0 z0 1]T
Direction d = [xd yd zd 0]T
Assume d normalized (xd2 + yd2 + zd2 = 1)
Ray p(t) = p0 + d t for t > 0
Surface in parametric form
Point q = g(u, v), possible bounds on u, v
Solve p + d t = g(u, v)
Three equations in three unknowns (t, u, v)

12
Rays and Implicit Surfaces
Ray in parametric form
Origin p0 = [x0 y0 z0 1]T
Direction d = [xd yd zd 0]t
Assume d normalized (xd2 + yd2 + zd2 = 1)
Ray p(t) = p0 + d t for t > 0
Implicit surface
Given by f(q) = 0
Consists of all points q such that f(q) = 0
Substitute ray equation for q: f(p0 + d t) = 0
Solve for t (univariate root finding)
Closed form (if possible) or numerical approximation

Ray-Sphere Intersection I
Common and easy case
Define sphere by
Center c = [xc yc zc 1]T
Radius r
Surface f(q) = (x xc)2 + (y yc)2+ (z zc)2 r2 = 0
Plug in ray equations for x, y, z:

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Ray-Sphere Intersection II
Simplify to

where

Solve to obtain t0 and t1

Check if t0, t1> 0 (ray)
Return min(t0, t1)

Ray-Sphere Intersection III

For lighting, calculate unit normal

Negate if ray originates inside the sphere!

14
Simple Optimizations
Factor common subexpressions
Compute only what is necessary
Calculate b2 4c, abort if negative (why?)
Compute normal only for closest intersection
Other similar optimizations [Handout]

Ray-Polygon Intersection I
Assume planar polygon
1. Intersect ray with plane containing polygon
2. Check if intersection point is inside polygon
Plane
Implicit form: ax + by + cz + d = 0
Unit normal: n = [a b c 0]T with a2 + b2 + c2 = 1
Substitute:

Solve:

15
Ray-Polygon Intersection II
Substitute t to obtain intersection point in plane
Test if point inside polygon [see Handout]

Ray-Quadric Intersection
Quadric f(p) = f(x, y, z) = 0, where f is
polynomial of order 2
Sphere, ellipsoid, paraboloid, hyperboloid,
cone, cylinder
Closed form solution as for sphere
Important case for modelling in ray tracing
Combine with CSG
[see Handout]

16
Barycentric Coordinates

Interpolated Shading for Ray Tracing

Assume we know normals at vertices
How do we compute normal of interior point?
Need linear interpolation between 3 points
Barycentric coordinates
Yields same answer as scan conversion

17
Barycentric Coordinates in 1D
Linear interpolation
p(t) = (1 t)p1 + t p2, 0 t 1
p(t) = p1 + p2 where + = 1
p is between p1 and p2 iff 0 , 1

Geometric intuition
Weigh each vertex by ratio of distances from ends
p1 p p2

, are called barycentric coordinates

Barycentric Coordinates in 2D
Given 3 points instead of 2
p1

p
p2
p3

Define 3 barycentric coordinates, , ,

p = p1 + p2 + p3
p inside triangle iff 0 , , 1, + + = 1
How do we calculate , , given p?

18
Barycentric Coordinates for Triangle
Coordinates are ratios of triangle areas

Area(CC1C 2 )
C1 =
Area(C0C1C 2 )
Area(C0CC2 )
C =
Area(C0C1C 2 )
C2 Area (C0C1C)
= = 1
Area(C0C1C 2 )
C0

Computing Triangle Area

C
In 3 dimensions
Use cross product
Parallelogram formula B
A
Area(ABC) = (1/2)|(B A) (C A)|
Optimization: project, use 2D formula
In 2 dimensions
Area(x-y-proj(ABC)) =
(1/2)((bx ax)(cy ay) (cx ax) (by ay))

19
Ray Tracing Preliminary Assessment
Global illumination method
Image-based
Pros:
Relatively accurate shadows, reflections, refractions
Cons:
Slow (per pixel parallelism, not pipeline parallelism)
Aliasing
Inter-object diffuse reflections

Ray Tracing Acceleration

Faster intersections
Faster ray-object intersections
Object bounding volume
Efficient intersectors
Fewer ray-object intersections
Hierarchical bounding volumes (boxes, spheres)
Spatial data structures
Directional techniques
Fewer rays
Adaptive tree-depth control
Stochastic sampling
Generalized rays (beams, cones)

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