Ray Tracing

Doubling down on ray tracing at GTC 2019

And the fact they are so symbiotic could have a lasting and dramatic impact on 3D visual processing.  Right at the outset of this year’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went out of his way to give graphics a hefty dose of respect, acknowledging that 3D visual processing remains the company’s bread and butter business. Now from … Read more

Ray tracing without Nvidia

Nvidia shook up the CG community last Fall at Siggraph when the company introduced its RTX Turing-based AIBs that are capable of real-time ray tracing (RTRT). Microsoft brought out a special API for it, DXR, and several ISVs committed to it (see article this issue, Ray tracing is a journey ).  All of that was and still is, exciting. I … Read more

Ray tracing is a journey—through the ecosystem

As most of you know I love ray tracing, even just wrote a book about it (comes out Siggraph time). So, I was thrilled when at last year’s Siggraph Nvidia showed their Turing architecture and promised real-time ray tracing for all. I wasn’t the only one thrilled as enthusiasts and developers bought out all Nvidia had to sell.  Then the … Read more

If you want to know about ray tracing, there’s two things you need to know about

One, JPR has just released the definitive report on the ray tracing market and its 70 software and three hardware providers: The Global Market for Ray Tracing Software Two, Nvidia will be presenting 21 sessions on ray tracing at their GTC conference in San Jose from the 18th to the 22nd of March, 2019: GPU Technology Conference Ray tracing and the advent … Read more

Patch me up Mr. Sweeney

Epic was the first company to demonstrate ray tracing using Microsoft’s new DRX API and Nvidia’s RTX technology at SIGGRAPH. They did that at GDC 2018 with a home-made movie using some of George Lucas’ stormtroopers who had the day off and nothing else to do. Actually, the experiment was created in collaboration with ILMxLAB. Careful you don’t slip on … Read more

V-Ray for SketchUp

Several companies offer a ray tracing plug-in for SketchUp, but Trimble calls this one the “premier renderer for SketchUp.” After more than four years of R&D, V-Ray Next accelerates the SketchUp workflow, and according to Chaos Group, the SketchUp plug-in offers massive speed and intelligence enabling designers to produce better renders faster. Chaos says V-Ray Scene Intelligence can now automatically … Read more

AMD CES keynote

Further evidence that AMD is at the top of its game came with the company’s keynote at CES this year. The company took a keynote spot for the first time while Intel let the opportunity pass.  CES CEO Gary Shapiro, who seems to be ageless, introduced Lisa Su, and couldn’t have done a better job if he had worked for … Read more

Chaos Group demos Project Lavina; realtime ray tracing

Forest animation rendered in realtime with Chaos’ new Lavina technology. The scene has over 300 billion triangles and 80,000 instances running at 24–30 frames per second with no rasterized graphics or reduced level of detail as might be used for game engine rendering. In this case, the render was performed on Nvidia’s Quadro RTX GPUs.  Chaos Group showcased its new … Read more

October will be a big ray tracing month

Every year, Futuremark, now part of UL Labs and simply known as “UL,” added new benchmark tests to its iconic 3DMark. Each test was designed for a specific class of hardware or a particular API. Since 2013, they’ve added tests that use DirectX 12, tests that run at 4K, tests for notebooks, tablets, and smartphones, as well as new features … Read more

Siemens acquires longtime visualization partner Lightwork Design

Siemens has announced the acquisition of Lightwork Design of Sheffield, England. Lightwork began life as an OEM provider of rendering software to many CAD companies including Autodesk, PTC, Siemens, and Dassault at one time or another. The company did not make products that sold directly to customers. Lightwork Design supplied rendering technology to Siemens for over twenty years. The company … Read more