POV-Ray: Newsgroups: povray.general: What Ray tracing technique does POVRay use?

POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : What Ray tracing technique does POVRay use?		Server Time 29 Jul 2024 08:16:55 EDT (-0400)

From: handos
Subject: What Ray tracing technique does POVRay use?
Date: 20 Oct 2012 17:00:01
Message: <web.508310b6294e13c9d7ae32040@news.povray.org>

Hi everyone,

I have used POVRay for some time but I would like to have more understanding of
the pipeline of POVRay renderings. Sorry, I might be asking a very naive
question but can someone please enlighten me what type of ray tracing technique
does POVRay use? Is it Distributed raytracing, Stochastic ray tracing? How does
it obtain radiosity? Is it the old form-factor based or is it something else?

Thank you.

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From: clipka
Subject: Re: What Ray tracing technique does POVRay use?
Date: 24 Oct 2012 05:34:33
Message: <5087b629@news.povray.org>

Am 20.10.2012 22:59, schrieb handos:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have used POVRay for some time but I would like to have more understanding of
> the pipeline of POVRay renderings. Sorry, I might be asking a very naive
> question but can someone please enlighten me what type of ray tracing technique
> does POVRay use? Is it Distributed raytracing, Stochastic ray tracing? How does
> it obtain radiosity? Is it the old form-factor based or is it something else?

POV-Ray uses a mix of various techniques:

- The basics are done using classic backward tracing.

- The photons feature uses some kind of forward tracing.

- Radiosity uses an algorithm first suggested by Greg Ward (Gregory J. 
Ward, Francis M. Rubinstein, Robert D. Clear, "A Ray Tracing Solution 
for Diffuse Interreflection", /Computer Graphics/, Vol. 22, No. 4, 
August 1988)


For stochastic ray tracing try MCPov.

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