Compile-Time-RayTracerChallenge (ctrtc)

Ray tracer implementation in C++ inspired by Jamis Buck's book "The Ray Tracer Challenge".

This is a C++20 ray tracer project using constexpr function evaluation to make all computation happend entirely at compile-time.

(This project is currently under development)

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• CMake 3.16+
• GTest
• Compliant C++20 compiler
  • The library is sytematically tested on following compilers

Compiler	Version
GCC	12.1.0
clang	15.0.0

With Ubuntu 22.04 (the O.S I used), one could easily install and setup enviorments needed for this project by:

# Install Make/CMake
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential
sudo apt-get install -y cmake
# Install GTest for running test suite
sudo apt-get install -y libgtest-dev
# Install g++20 and setup  
sudo apt-get install -y g++-12 gcc-12
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-12 100 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-12 --slave /usr/bin/gcov gcov /usr/bin/gcov-12
# (optional) or install clang15 if you want
sudo apt-get install -y clang-15
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/c++ c++ /usr/bin/clang++-15 40

WARNING

(1) While compile-time image generation works with GCC 12, compiler memory usage is extreme -- tens of gigabytes for even modest image sizes. If you want to try it out with GCC, stick to very small images or prepare for violent retribution from the OOM-killer.

(2) Alought I trying to follow and implment the testing examples in books, turning out there must be some trade-off for compile-time implementation in C++, therefore some test-cases mights look completely different from book illustrations (sending me pull requests if you think some implementations could be done better and better approximating examples from book).

Build and run test suite

Use the following commands from the project's top-most directory to run the test suite.

cd ctrtc
make clean # for tidy check
make test=1
make run-test

Render Results (starting from chapter 5)

If you want to complete the render at compile time, all calculations have to be done at compile time, which will cost a lot of memory and take longer to compile.

Chapter5

cd ctrtc
make clean # for tidy check
make CH=5 # render at run time
# ---or render at compile time, this would take up ~30 min to finish ---#
make CH=5 STATIC=1 
./build/default/debug/scene/CHAPTER5 

[]

Chapter6

cd ctrtc
make clean # for tidy check
make CH=6 # render at run time
# ---or render at compile time, this would take up ~30 min to finish
make CH=6 STATIC=1 
./build/default/debug/scene/CHAPTER6

Chapter7

cd ctrtc
make clean # for tidy check
make CH=7 # render at run time
# ---or render at compile time, this would take up ~30 min to finish
make CH=7 STATIC=1 
./build/default/debug/scene/CHAPTER7

Chapter8

cd ctrtc
make clean # for tidy check
make CH=8 # render at run time
# ---or render at compile time, this would take up ~30 min to finish
make CH=8 STATIC=1 
./build/default/debug/scene/CHAPTER8

Chapter9

cd ctrtc
make clean # for tidy check
make CH=9 # render at run time
# ---or render at compile time, this would take up ~30 min to finish
make CH=9 STATIC=1 
./build/default/debug/scene/CHAPTER9