Fabulous Ray Tracer

Hobby project that implements real-time path tracing for various backends to facilitate learning of different graphics APIs and experiment with various rendering techniques like reservor sampling.

Building FaRT

The project can be built via CMake. Dependencies are included in the repository as submodules. Make sure they are correctly checked out. If you have not cloned the repository yet run:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:DBauer15/FaRT.git

Alternatively, on a local copy run:

git submodules update --init --recursive

To build the application run:

cmake -B build -D[RENDERER] .
cmake --build build -j

Where [RENDERER] is one of the supported rendering backends (see below).

Building Renderers

FaRT supports various rendering backends which can be built by setting corresponding CMake flags. Currently, only a single backend is supported at a time. To build a backend, pass the approriate flag.

OpenGL (Windows, Linux)

cmake -B build -DBUILD_OPENGL_RENDERER=ON

Metal (Apple)

cmake -B build -DBUILD_METAL_RENDERER=ON 

Running FaRT

The app can be started by calling the compiled binary with the desired scene as an argument.

cd build 
./fart [SCENE_FILE]

Where [SCENE_FILE] is a 3D file of any of the supported formats (see "Supported 3D Formats" for details).

Controls

The renderer implements two camera models - a first-person camera (default) and a simple arcball camera model. The camera can be controlled via mouse inputs. Camera modes can be switched by pressing C.

First-Person Camera

• c - Switch to arcball camera
• LMB - Rotate the camera
• w, a, s, d - Move the camera forward/left/backward/right
• e, q - Move camera up/down
• SPACE - Movement boost

Arcball Camera

• c - Switch to first-person camera
• LMB - Rotate the camera
• RMB - Zoom in/out
• MMB - Pan the view

Supported 3D Formats

Here is an ever evolving list of supported file format.

• Wavefront OBJ
• PBRTv3 Format
• Autodesk FBX
• Stanford PLY
• GL Transmission Format glTF
• Pixar Universal Scene Descriptor USD