miniRT

My first RayTracer with miniLibX

Summary: This project is an introduction to the beautiful world of Raytracing.

Once completed you will be able to render simple Computer-Generated-Images and you
will never be afraid of implementing mathematical formulas again.
Contents
I Introduction 2

II Common Instructions 3

III Mandatory part - miniRT 4

IV Bonus part 9

V Examples 11

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Chapter I

Introduction

When it comes to rendering 3 dimensional computer generated images there are 2 possi-
ble approaches: “Rasterization”, which is used by almost all graphic engines because
of it’s efficiency and “Ray Tracing.”

The “Ray Tracing” method, developed for the first time in 1968 (but improved upon
since) is even today more expensive in computation than the “Rasterization” method.
As a result it is not well adapted to real time usecases but it produces a much higher
degree of visual realism.

Figure I.1: The pictures above are rendered with the ray tracing technique. Impressive isn’t it?

Before you can even begin to produce such high quality graphics, you must mas-
ter the basics: the miniRT is your first ray tracer coded in C, normed and humble but
functionnal.

The main goal of miniRT is to prove to yourself that you are able to implement any
mathematics or physics formulas without being a mathematician, we will only implement
the most basics ray tracing features here so just keep calm, take a deep breath and don’t
panic! After this project you’ll be able to show off nice looking pictures to justify the
amount of hours you’re spending at school..

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Chapter II

Common Instructions

• Your project must be written in accordance with the Norm. If you have bonus
files/functions, they are included in the norm check and you will receive a 0 if there
is a norm error inside.

• Your functions should not quit unexpectedly (segmentation fault, bus error, double
free, etc) apart from undefined behaviors. If this happens, your project will be
considered non functional and will receive a 0 during the evaluation.

• All heap allocated memory space must be properly freed when necessary. No leaks
will be tolerated.

• If the subject requires it, you must submit a Makefile which will compile your
source files to the required output with the flags -Wall, -Wextra and -Werror, and
your Makefile must not relink.

• Your Makefile must at least contain the rules $(NAME), all, clean, fclean and
re.

• To turn in bonuses to your project, you must include a rule bonus to your Makefile,
which will add all the various headers, librairies or functions that are forbidden on
the main part of the project. Bonuses must be in a different file _bonus.{c/h}.
Mandatory and bonus part evaluation is done separately.

• If your project allows you to use your libft, you must copy its sources and its
associated Makefile in a libft folder with its associated Makefile. Your project’s
Makefile must compile the library by using its Makefile, then compile the project.

• We encourage you to create test programs for your project even though this work
won’t have to be submitted and won’t be graded. It will give you a chance
to easily test your work and your peers’ work. You will find those tests especially
useful during your defence. Indeed, during defence, you are free to use your tests
and/or the tests of the peer you are evaluating.

• Submit your work to your assigned git repository. Only the work in the git reposi-
tory will be graded. If Deepthought is assigned to grade your work, it will be done
after your peer-evaluations. If an error happens in any section of your work during
Deepthought’s grading, the evaluation will stop.

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Chapter III

Mandatory part - miniRT

Program name miniRT

Turn in files All your files
Makefile all, clean, fclean, re, bonus
Arguments a scene in format *.rt
External functs.

• open, close, read, write,

printf, malloc, free, perror,
strerror, exit
• All functions of the math
library (-lm man man 3 math)
• All functions of the MinilibX

Libft authorized Yes

Description The goal of your program is to generate images
using the Raytracing protocol. Those computer
generated images will each represent a scene, as
seen from a specific angle and position, defined
by simple geometric objects, and each with its own
lighting system.

The constraints are as follows:

• You must use the miniLibX. Either the version that is available on the operating
system, or from its sources. If you choose to work with the sources, you will
need to apply the same rules for your libft as those written above in Common
Instructions part.

• The management of your window must remain smooth: changing to another win-
dow, minimizing, etc.

• You need at least these 5 simple geometric objects: plane, sphere, cylinder, square
and triangle.

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

• If applicable, all possible intersections and the inside of the object must be handled
correctly.

• Your progam must be able to resize the object’s unique properties: diameter for a
sphere, side size for a square and the width and height for a cylinder.

• Your program must be able to apply translation and rotation transformation to

objects, lights and cameras (except for spheres, triangles and lights that cannot be
rotated).

• Light management: spot brightness, hard shadows, ambience lighting (objects are
never completely in the dark). Colored and multi-spot lights have to be handled
correctly.

• In case the Deepthought has eyes one day to evaluate your project and if you want
to be able to render beautiful desktop wallpapers...
Instead of opening a window, your program must save the rendered image in
bmp format when its second argument is "–-save".

• If no second argument is supplied, the program displays the image in a window and
respect the following rules:

◦ Pressing ESC must close the window and quit the program cleanly.
◦ Clicking on the red cross on the window’s frame must close the window and
quit the program cleanly.
◦ If the declared size of the scene is greater than the display resolution, the
window size will be set depending to the current display resolution.
◦ If there is more than one camera you must be able to switch between them by
pressing the keyboard keys of your choice.
◦ The use of images of the minilibX is strongly recommended.

• Your program must take as a first argument a scene description file with the .rt
extension.

◦ It will contain the window/rendered image size, which implies your miniRT
must be able to render in any positive size.
◦ Each type of element can be separated by one or more line break(s).
◦ Each type of information from an element can be separated by one or more
space(s).
◦ Each type of element can be set in any order in the file.
◦ Elements which are defined by a capital letter can only be declared once in
the scene.

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

◦ Each element first’s information is the type identifier (composed by one or two
character(s)), followed by all specific information for each object in a strict
order such as:
∗ Resolution:
R 1920 1080

· identifier: R
· x render size
· y render size
∗ Ambient lightning:
A 0.2 255,255,255

· identifier: A
· ambient lighting ratio in range [0.0,1.0]: 0.2
· R,G,B colors in range [0-255]: 255, 255, 255
∗ Camera:
c -50.0,0,20 0,0,1 70

· identifier: c
· x,y,z coordinates of the view point: 0.0,0.0,20.6
· 3d normalized orientation vector. In range [-1,1] for each x,y,z axis:
0.0,0.0,1.0
· FOV : Horizontal field of view in degrees in range [0,180]
∗ Light:
l -40.0,50.0,0.0 0.6 10,0,255

· identifier: l
· x,y,z coordinates of the light point: 0.0,0.0,20.6
· the light brightness ratio in range [0.0,1.0]: 0.6
· R,G,B colors in range [0-255]: 10, 0, 255
∗ Sphere:
sp 0.0,0.0,20.6 12.6 10,0,255

· identifier: sp
· x,y,z coordinates of the sphere center: 0.0,0.0,20.6
· the sphere diameter: 12.6
· R,G,B colors in range [0-255]: 10, 0, 255

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

∗ Plane:
pl 0.0,0.0,-10.0 0.0,1.0,0.0 0,0,225

· identifier: pl
· x,y,z coordinates: 0.0,0.0,-10.0
· 3d normalized orientation vector. In range [-1,1] for each x,y,z axis:
0.0,0.0,1.0
· R,G,B colors in range [0-255]: 0, 0, 255
∗ Square:
sq 0.0,0.0,20.6 1.0,0.0,0.0 12.6 255,0,255

· identifier: sq
· x,y,z coordinates of the square center: 0.0,0.0,20.6
· 3d normalized orientation vector. In range [-1,1] for each x,y,z axis:
1.0,0.0,0.0
· side size: 12.6
· R,G,B colors in range [0-255]: 255, 0, 255
∗ Cylinder:
cy 50.0,0.0,20.6 0.0,0.0,1.0 14.2 21.42 10,0,255

· identifier: cy
· x,y,z coordinates: 50.0,0.0,20.6
· 3d normalized orientation vector. In range [-1,1] for each x,y,z axis:
0.0,0.0,1.0
· the cylinder diameter: 14.2
· the cylinder height: 21.42
· R,G,B colors in range [0,255]: 10, 0, 255
∗ Triangle:
tr 10.0,20.0,10.0 10.0,10.0,20.0 20.0,10.0,10.0 0,0,255

· identifier: tr
· x,y,z coordinates of the first point: 10.0,20.0,10.0
· x,y,z coordinates of the second point: 10.0,10.0,20.0
· x,y,z coordinates of the third point: 20.0,10.0,10.0
· R,G,B colors in range [0,255]: 0, 255, 255

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

• Example of the mandatory part with a minimalist .rt scene:

R 1920 1080
A 0.2 255,255,255

c -50,0,20 0,0,0 70
l -40,0,30 0.7 255,255,255

pl 0,0,0 0,1.0,0 255,0,225

sp 0,0,20 20 255,0,0
sq 0,100,40 0,0,1.0 30 42,42,0
cy 50.0,0.0,20.6 0,0,1.0 14.2 21.42 10,0,255
tr 10,20,10 10,10,20 20,10,10 0,0,255

• If any misconfiguration of any kind is encountered in the file the program must exit
properly and return "Error\n" followed by an explicit error message of your choice.

• For the defence, it would be ideal for you to have a whole set of scenes with the
focus on what is functional, to facilitate the control of the elements to create.

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Chapter IV

Bonus part

Obviously the Ray-Tracing technique could handle many more things like reflection,
transparency, refraction, more complex objects, soft shadows, caustics, global illumina-
tion, bump maping, .obj file rendering etc..

But for the miniRT project, we want to keep things simple for your first raytracer and
your first steps in CGI.

So here is a list of few simple bonuses you could implement, if you want to do bigger
bonuses we strongly advise you to recode a new ray-tracer later in your developer life
after this little one is finished and fully functionnal.

Figure IV.1: A spot, a space skybox and a shiny earth-textured sphere with bump-maping

Bonuses will be evaluated only if your mandatory part is PERFECT.

By PERFECT we naturally mean that it needs to be complete, that it
cannot fail, even in cases of nasty mistakes like wrong uses etc.
Basically, it means that if your mandatory part does not obtain ALL
the points during the grading, your bonuses will be entirely IGNORED.

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

Bonus list:

• Normal disruption e.g. using sine which gives a wave effect.

• Color disruption: checkerboard.

• Color disruption: rainbow effect using object’s normal.

• Parallel light following a precise direction.

• Compound element: Cube (6 squares).

• Compound element: Pyramid (4 triangles, 1 square).

• Putting caps on size-limited cylinders.

• One other 2nd degree object: Cone, Hyperboloid, Paraboloid..

• One color filter: Sepia, R/G/B filters..

• Anti-aliasing.

• Simple stereoscopy (like red/green glasses).

• Multithreaded rendering.

• Sphere texturing: uv mapping.

• Handle bump map textures.

• A beautiful skybox.

• Keyboard interactivity (translation/rotation) with camera.

• Keyboard interactivity (translation/rotation) with objects.

• Changing the camera rotation with the mouse.

You are allowed to use other functions to complete the bonus part as
long as their use is justified during your evaluation. You are also
allowed to modify the expected scene file format to fit your needs.
Be smart!

To earn all bonus points you need to validate at least 14 of them, so

choose wisely but be careful to not waste your time!

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Chapter V

Examples

Figure V.1: A sphere, one spot, some shine (optional)

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

Figure V.2: A cylinder, one spot

Figure V.3: A cone (optional), a plane, one spot

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

Figure V.4: A bit of everything, including 2 planes

Figure V.5: Same scene different camera

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

Figure V.6: This time with shadows

Figure V.7: With multiple spots

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miniRT My first RayTracer with miniLibX

Figure V.8: A plane, 3 triangles, 1 square and one low brightness spot at the left

Figure V.9: And finally with multiple spots and a shiny checkered (optional) sphere in
the middle

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