vk-pathtracer

Warning

This repository is deprecated in favor of https://github.com/tylertms/vkrt

Interactive, physically-based pathtracing engine using the Vulkan API. Includes full camera control, a custom BVH builder, glTF 2.0 loader, and more. This is a hobby project for my own learning and likely has many naive implementations.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Compilation
  • Mac/Linux
  • Windows
• Features
• Roadmap
• Issues
• Gallery
• References
• Debug Views

Requirements

• Windows, Mac, or Linux
• Vulkan SDK with API v1.2+
• GCC/Clang with C++17
• CMake v3.20+

Compilation

Mac & Linux:

git clone https://github.com/tylertms/vk-pathtracer
cd vk-pathtracer
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j4
./build/bin/vk-pathtracer

Windows:

Install Visual Studio, MinGW, MSYS, or another C++ toolchain.

git clone https://github.com/tylertms/vk-pathtracer
cd vk-pathtracer
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

If a Makefile generator cannot be found, include the -G flag with your corresponding generator, i.e., MinGW Makefiles or MSYS Makefiles.

cmake --build build -j4
.\build\bin\vk-pathtracer.exe

Features

• GPU-accelerated pathtracing algorithm
• Fully interactive scene (rotate/zoom/pan)
• Control of camera FOV, focal distance, focal strength, exposure, etc.
• glTF 2.0 loader
• Position objects and adjust material properties from the sidebar
• Mix diffuse, specular, metallic, and dielectric BxDFs
• HDR environment mapping (equirectangular)
• ACES HDR tone mapping
• Partial texture support
• Save and load scenes using YAML files
• And more...

Roadmap

• Hardware raytracing support (VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline)
• Top level acceleration structure for scenes with many meshes
• Improved glTF texture support and object hierarchy
• BVH optimizations, construction through compute shader
• Wavefront pathtracing (a fundamentally different approach to light transport)

Issues

• Scene saving/loading is currently broken
• Creating new scenes is buggy and will sometimes crash the program
• Textures may not always be detected and may load incorrectly

Gallery

References

Vulkan Tutorial - Alexander Overvoorde

Ray Tracing in One Weekend - Peter Shirley

Coding Adventure: Ray Tracing - Sebastian Lague

Coding Adventure: Optimizing a Ray Tracer (by building a BVH) - Sebastian Lague

Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation

How to build a BVH - Jacco Bikker

RayTracingInVulkan - GPSnoopy

Debug Views

Normal Vector (x/y/z) as Color (r/g/b) Number of Ray-Box Tests Number of Ray-Triangle Tests