raytracer 🔦

Implementation of a ray tracer in Rust. Hobby project. Guidance: https://raytracing.github.io

Usage

raytracer-cli <INPUT> --width=<WIDTH> --height=<HEIGHT> [OPTIONS]

You can control output, camera and rendering parameters with other options. For example, the following command will produce a demo image of width 800 px, height 450 px, camera at (0, 0, 1) and a vertical field of view of 90 degrees:

raytracer-cli ./inputs/github.json -w=800 -h=450 -c=0,0,1 --fov=90

For a list of all available options, see the help message with:

raytracer-cli -H   # or --help

Build & Run

If you haven't already, install the Rust toolchain. You can either clone this repository or if you don't know how, download the source code by clicking on the green <> Code button above.

[!NOTE] The following commands utilize the release profile, as the resulting executable is substantially faster (at the expense of compile time). For debug information, use the dev profile by omitting the -r/--release flag.

You can build and run the program with the following command:

cargo run -rq -- -w=<WIDTH> -h=<HEIGHT> [OPTIONS]

On the first execution this will compile the binary, which might take a little time. Successive executions will be faster, provided no source code has been changed.

[!TIP] Another performance optimization you can do is compiling the binary strictly for your specific CPU by setting the target-cpu compiler flag:

RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo run -rq -- -w=<WIDTH> -h=<HEIGHT> [OPTIONS]

Executable

If you've run the commands above, the executable will be located in the target/release subdirectory. Otherwise, you can compile the binary with:

cargo build --release

WebAssembly

To compile for wasm32-unknown-unknown, install wasm-pack:

cargo install wasm-pack

Then, run the following:

wasm-pack build --target=web

References

Peter Shirley, Trevor David Black, Steve Hollasch: Ray Tracing in One Weekend Series.