RustyTracer

A high-performance ray tracer built in Rust featuring 8 stunning preset scenes, BVH acceleration, and parallel processing for fast renders.

Features

• Blazing Fast: BVH acceleration + Rayon parallelization

• 8 Preset Scenes: From classic to ultra-high quality renders

• Advanced Materials: Realistic glass, metal, and diffuse surfaces

• Interactive Menu: User-friendly scene selection interface

• High Resolution: Up to 1400px with 300+ samples per pixel

• Parallel Processing: Multi-threaded rendering for maximum performance

• Optimized: 10x+ faster rendering compared to single-threaded implementations

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.70+ (install from rustup.rs)

Installation & Usage

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Aditya-1304/raytracer.git
cd raytracer

# Run with optimizations (strongly recommended!)
cargo run --release

# Follow the interactive menu to select and render scenes

Technical Implementation

Core Features

• BVH Acceleration: Spatial partitioning reduces intersection tests from O(n) to O(log n)

• Parallel Processing: Rayon-powered multi-threading across CPU cores

• Advanced Materials:

  • Lambertian (diffuse) surfaces with perfect scattering
  • Metal surfaces with configurable roughness
  • Dielectric materials with realistic refraction (glass, water, crystals)

• Camera Effects: Depth of field, anti-aliasing, adjustable field of view

• Optimized Sampling: Importance sampling for realistic lighting

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs           # Interactive CLI interface
├── scenes.rs         # Scene definitions and generators  
├── camera.rs         # Camera with depth of field
├── material.rs       # Material implementations
├── bvh.rs           # BVH acceleration structure
├── vec3.rs          # 3D vector math
├── ray.rs           # Ray definition and operations
├── sphere.rs        # Sphere primitive
├── color.rs         # Color handling and gamma correction
└── rtweekend.rs     # Utilities and random number generation

Usage Tips

Output

• Images are saved as .ppm files in the project directory
• Convert to common formats: convert image.ppm image.jpg (ImageMagick)
• Or use online converters for quick sharing

Customization

• Modify src/scenes.rs to create your own scenes
• Adjust camera parameters for different perspectives
• Experiment with material properties for unique effects

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here are some ideas:

• New Scenes: Create unique ray-traced scenes
• Performance: GPU acceleration, SIMD optimizations
• Features: New materials, lighting models, primitives
• Bug Fixes: Resolve issues and improve stability
• Documentation: Improve guides and code comments

Development Setup

git clone https://github.com/Aditya-1304/raytracer.git
cd raytracer

# Run tests
cargo test

# Check code formatting
cargo fmt --check

# Run clippy for linting
cargo clippy

Acknowledgments

• Peter Shirley: "Ray Tracing in One Weekend" series
• Rust Community: For excellent documentation and crates
• Graphics Researchers: Decades of ray tracing innovation

Inspiration

This project demonstrates the power of Rust for high-performance graphics programming, combining memory safety with zero-cost abstractions to achieve both correctness and speed.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contact

Aditya Mandal

• Email: mandaladitya1614@gmail.com
• GitHub: @Aditya-1304