Bipul Mohanto

Bipul Mohanto

Doctoral Researcher@ Foveated Rendering | 3D Graphics Rendering| Global Illumination | Multi-View Rendering | Applied Human Perception | Color Science | Computer Vision

The Ray Marching

less than 1 minute read

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(work in progress…)

Ray Marching

Ray Marching is related to the volume rendering where rays interact with different scene particles. According to the Ray Tracing Gems, “the alternative of ray marching is the volume collision simulation”.

Ray marching (similiar to traditional ray tracing) is used for complex surface function. Ray tracing looks for the ray-object interaction only one way, while the ray marching can move forward and backward until it finds the intersection. The algorithm uses Signed Distance Function (SDF) to determine safe advance along the ray so it does not hit anything. But it is confined only to the analytical scene.

Sphere Tracing

Sphere tracing ([1]) is a variation of Ray Marching. However, according to Ray Tracing Gems, sphere casting could be more appropriate term.

Resources

  1. John C. Hart, Sphere tracing: a geometric method for antialiased ray tracing of implicit surfaces (1996); url: https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs348b-20-spring-content/uploads/hart.pdf

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