Ray Tracer

A high-performance C++ ray tracer implementation featuring advanced rendering capabilities including materials, reflections, transparency, and multithreaded rendering for dramatic performance improvements.

Renderer Showcase

Material Rendering

Demonstrating various material properties and textures

Reflections

Realistic reflections with proper light interaction and surface properties

Transparency

Transparent objects with proper refraction and light transmission

Performance Optimization

Multithreading Performance Comparison

The renderer features significant performance improvements through multithreaded rendering:

200x300 Resolution

Before Multithreading	After Multithreading

800x600 Resolution

After Multithreading

Performance gains achieved through:

• Parallel pixel processing across multiple CPU cores
• Optimized ray-object intersection algorithms
• Efficient memory management for concurrent operations
• Dramatic reduction in rendering time for high-resolution images. Notice: the 800x600 runtime after multithreading is faster than the 200x300 before the optimization!

Features

• Advanced Materials: Support for diffuse, specular, and ambient lighting
• Reflections: Realistic surface reflections with proper light interaction
• Transparency: Transparent objects with refraction effects
• Geometric Primitives: Spheres and planes with transformation support
• Camera System: Configurable field of view and resolution
• Multithreaded Rendering: Significant performance improvements through parallel processing
• PPM Output: Standard image format for easy viewing and conversion
• Comprehensive Testing: Full test suite covering all rendering components

Building the Project

Prerequisites

• CMake 3.10 or higher
• C++17 compatible compiler
• Make

Build Instructions

1. Create and navigate to build directory:

   mkdir build
   cd build

2. Configure with CMake:

   cmake ..

3. Build everything:

   make

Running Tests

Run All Tests

cd build
ctest

Run Tests with Verbose Output

cd build
ctest --verbose

Run Specific Test

cd build
ctest -R TupleTests
ctest -R CanvasTests
ctest -R CameraTests
# ... or any other test name

Run Test Executable Directly

cd build
./tests/TupleTests
./tests/CanvasTests
./tests/CameraTests
# ... or any other test executable

Build Only Tests

cd build
make tests

Running the Main Program

Build the Ray Tracer

cd build
make ray_tracer

Run the Ray Tracer

cd build
./src/ray_tracer

Available Test Suites

• TupleTests - Tuple operations and transformations
• CanvasTests - Canvas rendering and PPM output
• CameraTests - Camera functionality and ray generation
• ColorTests - Color operations and blending
• IntersectionTests - Ray-object intersection calculations
• MatrixTests - Matrix operations and transformations
• PatternTests - Material patterns and textures
• PlaneTests - Plane geometry and intersections
• RayTests - Ray operations and transformations
• SphereTests - Sphere geometry and intersections
• TransformationTests - Object transformations
• LightTests - Lighting calculations and shading
• WorldTests - Scene composition and rendering

Quick Commands

# Build everything
make

# Run all tests
ctest

# Build and run ray tracer
make ray_tracer && ./src/ray_tracer

# Build specific test
make TupleTests

# Run specific test
./tests/TupleTests