rt

rt is a simple ray tracing project designed to build foundational understanding of rendering 3D scenes through ray tracing techniques. Below is the default scene rendered.

In this project, we implement:

• simple objects:
  • 2D plane
  • Cube
  • Cylinder
  • Sphere
• camera
• lights:
  • directional
  • point
• material:
  • lambertian
  • metal
  • dielectric
• Texture:
  • Solid Color
  • Checked Box
  • Gradient
  • Image

We explore the following concepts:

• The mathematical foundations of ray tracing
• How geometric shapes are defined and rendered in 3D space
• The role of light, material, and texture in producing realistic images

Installation

This project is written entirely in Rust. To get started:

• Make sure Rust is installed.
• Clone the repository

Usage

Running the project with: cargo run will render a default scene and save the output to a file named output.ppm in the current directory.

To render your own scene, you will have to define your scene in main.rs fn main().

fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    let mut scene = Scene::new();

    default_scene(&mut scene); // replace this with your scene setup
    scene.render("output.ppm")?; 

    Ok(())
}

Read about the basic types that you will be working with.

Read about the scene elements and how to set them up.

Flags

This project supports several command-line flags to customize rendering without modifying the source code.

Run your program with flags like this:

cargo run -- [FLAGS]

Available Flags

Flag	Description	Example
-o <filename>	Specify output filename instead of the default output.ppm	-o result.ppm
-s <scene_num>	Select which scene to render. Valid values: 1 to 4. Defaults to scene 4.	-s 2
-r <width> <height>	Set the resolution of the rendered image. Width and height must be positive integers.	-r 800 600

Example Usage

Render scene 2 with resolution 800x600 and save output as my_render.ppm:

cargo run -- -s 2 -r 800 600 -o my_render.ppm

If you omit any flags, the program uses default values:

• Scene 3 is rendered
• Resolution is whatever is set in the scene (or default)
• Output is saved to output.ppm