High-Performance Python Ray Tracer

A professional, optimized ray tracing engine written in Python. This project demonstrates advanced vectorized computation, geometric acceleration, and high configurability:

• Optimized code using numpy for maximum speed and parallelism
• Supports interactive editing of 3D scenes described in plain text
• Efficiently renders scenes with 100+ objects in seconds
• Robust recursive tracing (up to 10 layers deep for reflection and transparency)

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🖼️ Demo Renders

City at Sunset

Colorful Pool Balls

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Features

• Geometry: Spheres, cubes, infinite planes, and more
• Materials: Diffuse & specular colors, reflectivity, transparency, Phong highlights
• Lighting: Multiple colored lights, soft shadows, sun/sky simulation
• Reflections & Transparency: Recursive ray-tracing with realistic mirrors and glass
• Numpy Vectorization: Blazing-fast computation using fully parallelized math
• Scene Files: Human-readable text scenes for easy editing (see scenes/)
• BSP Acceleration: Smart space partitioning for ultra-fast intersection tests

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🛠️ How It Works

• Camera shoots rays through every pixel into the scene
• For each ray:
  • Find what surface it hits first (spheres 🟡, cubes 🟪, planes 🟫)
  • Calculate intersection point & normal
  • Evaluate material: base color, shininess, reflectivity, transparency
  • Compute lighting:
    • Diffuse (matte color)
    • Specular (shiny highlight)
    • Shadows and soft shadow blending
    • Reflections (recursively bounce rays!)
    • Transparency (trace light through surface)
• Numpy powers all math: intersections, color blending, recursion — almost every function runs on whole image arrays at once 🚀
• BSP (Binary Space Partitioning): Accelerates collision by ignoring objects not in the ray's path.

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📦 Supported Geometry & Materials

Surfaces

• 🟡 Spheres: Defined by center & radius
• 🟪 Cubes: Axis-aligned, center & size (no rotation)
• 🟫 Infinite Planes: By normal and offset
• 🌌 Background: Customizable scene fill color

Materials

• 🎨 Diffuse Color: Surface base color
• ✨ Specular Color: Shininess (mirror highlight)
• 🎯 Phong Power: Control highlight sharpness
• 🪞 Reflection: Mirror-like reflection color
• 🪟 Transparency: 0=opaque, 1=fully transparent

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🐍 Code Structure (Key Files)

• ray_tracer.py: Entry point, high-level pipeline
• ray_functions.py: Ray generation, reflections, intersections; all numpy-accelerated
• BSPNode.py: BSP tree for geometric acceleration
• Material.py, Light.py: Material & lighting models
• Camera.py, SceneSettings.py: Scene configuration
• surfaces/: Sphere, Cube, Plane, and abstract base classes
• Parser.py: Loads text scene files and objects
• util.py: Math helpers, color/image utilities
• scenes/: Example customizable scene files
• output/: Rendered PNG results

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🚦 How to Run

python ray_tracer.py scenes/original.txt output/original.png --width 512 --height 512

• Tweak any .txt file in scenes/ and rerun for new images!

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📝 Scene Files: Easy Customization

• Compose your 3D world with plain text: add spheres, cubes, lights and set all colors/materials!
• Example (scenes/original.txt) — add new lines to customize:
  • sph x y z radius material (add spheres)
  • box x y z size material (cubes/boxes)
  • pln nx ny nz offset material (planes)
  • lgt x y z r g b spec shadow width (lights)
  • mtl r g b ... (define new materials)

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🚀 Numpy & Performance

• All core computations are vectorized:
  • Rays are processed in giant numpy arrays (no loops)
  • Intersection, color blending, and shadowing all run in parallel for max speed
• BSP trees: Scene subdivision skips irrelevant geometry for each ray
• Recursion: Reflection/transparency depth is configurable for performance