Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Ben Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> > First of all, POV is already a forward raytracer.
>
>   The most common agreement is that the "forward" and "backward" terms
> refer to the direction in which light travels.
>
>   In other words, a "forward raytracer" is a raytracer which calculates
> how light traverses from light sources towards the scene, and from there
> towards the camera.
>
>   A "backward raytracer" does the opposite: It calculates in the opposite
> direction how light travels, ie. it starts from the camera towards the
> scene, and from there to the light sources. This is how POV-Ray (and
> almost all raytracers) work.

Hmm, I've normally seen it where "raytracer" implies from-the-camera-out
(camera -> scene -> light source), and where "backwards raytracer" is used
to mean light source -> scene -> camera.
Charles

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