Introduction

DisTracer is a distributed raytracing engine that vastly decreases the time required to generate high-quality 3D images. It is capable of loading models and scenes developed in most modern modeling applications, and rendering them in full detail with physically modelled lighting effects. The distributed nature of the program means that it can render scenes of increasing complexity in similar timeframes by simply adding nodes to the cluster. Finally, it is one of the rare raytracers capable of importing the new industry standard X3D format.

Opportunity

Problem

There is no free high quality distributed raytracer written in the Java language, and no raytracer that can import files in VRML and X3D formats.

Affected Parties

3D modelers and artists, including the designers of computer animated movies.

Impact

Currently, complex images can take a long time to render on standard desktop hardware. By pooling together unused clock-cycles of many such machines we can make the rendering process much faster.

A Successful Solution:

• Creates extremely high-quality still images of three dimensional scenes.
• Utilizes a distributed architecture for scalability
• Is capable of parsing VRML, VRML97, and X3D file formats

Product Position

What Alternatives Exist?

POV-Ray is the standard in freely downloadable, open-source raytracers. It is written in C++, and source code is available, although through the relatively restrictive POV-Ray license. POV-Ray lacks the capability to distribute renders across multiple computers, however, which greatly increases the time necessary to create an image. It is also incompatible with the X3D file format, which is one of the highlights of DisTracer.

Other professional raytracing packages are very expensive and usually tied to a single modelling application, sometimes ranging in the thousands of dollars per license. We're aiming for high image quality for a free tracer.

What differentiates our product from its competition?

• Free
• Distributed/Parallel rendering
• Web-based/Multi-platform
• Supports X3D

Goals

High-Level Goals

• Provide a high quality rendering solution.
• Utilize a distributed architecture to speed up rendering for complex images.
• Independent of any modelling application.

Implemented Features

• Primitives
  • Planes
  • Spheres
  • Triangle meshes
• Lights
  • Omni light
• Phong shading/lighting
• Camera exposure simulation
• Area lighting and soft shadows
• Anti-aliasing
• Reflection
• Shadow-ray cache to speed up rendering

Planned Features

• Refraction
• Path-tracing-based global illumination
• Physically modelled materials - BRDF
• Glossy reflections
• Sky light
• Spot light
• X3D scene loading
• Distributed rendering