Investigation of Pov-Ray data structures and algorithms

Abstract

Ray tracing is the most powerful technique for producing photo-realistic images. POV-Ray is a popular freeware and open source ray tracing software capable of producing stunningly realistic images. While the user documentation is descriptive and thorough, not much explained for the advanced users who want to study the source code. This paper hopes to provide a detailed description of the ray tracing data structures and implementation of various features and to give pointers for further study.