AI Term of the Moment
Humanichs
Definition: ray tracing
A rendering method that simulates light reflections, refractions and shadows. It follows a light path from a specific source and computes each pixel in the image to simulate the effect of the light. Ray tracing is very process-intensive but is essential for 3D graphics.
Built In Today
In 2018, NVIDIA added ray tracing hardware to its graphics cards, and today all high-end cards have ray tracing built in. See GPU, reflection mapping and radiosity.
Ray-Traced Image
Modern-day Ray Tracing
Built In Today
In 2018, NVIDIA added ray tracing hardware to its graphics cards, and today all high-end cards have ray tracing built in. See GPU, reflection mapping and radiosity.
This is one of the first ray-traced images. Shadows are created by software algorithms that simulate a beam of light from a designated source. (Image courtesy of Computer Sciences Department, University of Utah.)
Created in MicroStation Modeler, this shows the shadows and reflections that make a digital object photorealistic. Note the silver areas on the crankshaft. This image has only 256 colors, reduced from thousands in the original file. (Image courtesy of Bentley Systems, Inc.)