Perhaps he really is looking for Ray Casting (in the context of surfaces, versus volumes) if he's looking for an alternative to Ray Tracing. <br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting</a><br>
<br>Excerpt: <br>Ray casting is not a synonym for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_%28graphics%29" title="Ray tracing (graphics)">ray tracing</a>, but can be thought of as an abridged, and significantly faster, version of the ray tracing algorithm. Both are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_and_object_order_rendering" title="Image and object order rendering">image order</a> algorithms used in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics" title="Computer graphics">computer graphics</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_%28computer_graphics%29" title="Rendering (computer graphics)">render</a> three dimensional scenes to two dimensional screens by following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_%28optics%29" title="Ray (optics)">rays</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light" title="Light">light</a> from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_geometry" title="Projective geometry">eye</a>
of the observer to a light source. Ray casting does not compute the new
direction a ray of light might take after intersecting a surface on its
way from the eye to the source of light. This eliminates the
possibility of accurately rendering <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_%28physics%29" title="Reflection (physics)">reflections</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractions" title="Refractions" class="mw-redirect">refractions</a>, or the natural falloff of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow" title="Shadow">shadows</a>; however all of these elements can be faked to a degree, by creative use of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_%28computer_graphics%29" title="Texture (computer graphics)" class="mw-redirect">texture</a>
maps or other methods. The high speed of calculation made ray casting a
handy rendering method in early real-time 3D video games.<br><br><br>-Rob<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 3:17 AM, Chris Barber <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:chris@cb1inc.com">chris@cb1inc.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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Do you mean ray marching? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_ray_casting" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_ray_casting</a><div><div></div><div class="h5">
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On 1/31/10 11:53 PM, Ryan Hanson wrote:
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<pre>To the people who went to the penguins unbound thingy on Saturday.
I'm trying to figure out the other alternative to Ray Tracing that used
stepping.
I tried searching for Ray Stepping but I didn't find anything.
Any help?
Thanks
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