raytracer.hpp | Simple compile-time raytracer using C++17

raytracer.hpp is a C library. raytracer.hpp has no bugs, it has no vulnerabilities and it has low support. You can download it from GitHub.

The rt::ray_tracer class takes a Scene and renders it onto a Canvas, where both Scene and Canvas are template parameters given to the ray_tracer::render() method. A Scene is made up of a number of "things", a number of lights, and a camera. In the language of the Concepts TS, the expected interface might be something like this:. A Canvas is simpler, and basically just requires a set_pixel(x, y, rt::color) method. The file compile_time.cpp contains a scene (and canvas) using std::arrays, while run_time.cpp is the same but uses std::vectors instead (to deliberately prevent compile-time evaluation). A Thing is an object in the world. The header provides two types of Thing, namely a sphere and a plane. To avoid virtual functions, these are used polymorphically via an any_thing class, which is a wrapper around a std::variant. If you wish to define your own kind of Thing in a scene (for example a box), you'll need add it to the any_thing variant, and implement three member functions: intersect(), which tests whether a given ray interects with the Thing, get_normal() which returns the normal vector to the object at the given point, and get_surface() which returns the surface the object is made from. (Unfortunately, the interface for intersect() is slightly complicated by the need to return a pointer to an any_thing along with the intersection information, but it's fairly straightforward -- take a look at the code for the sphere and plane classes.).