What is ray tracing?
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Discuss your projectWhat is ray tracing?
What ray tracing means
Ray tracing determines where rays intersect objects in a 3D scene. Renderers use that information to calculate visibility, reflections, shadows, and refraction, among other effects. For product imagery, it can help communicate shape and material through their response to light. The technique alone does not guarantee a convincing image. Modeling, material data, lighting, and art direction need to work together. Depending on the software, larger rendering tasks can be distributed across a render farm.
How ray tracing works
Many renderers begin with rays from a virtual camera into the scene. Multiple samples may contribute to one pixel. At each intersection, geometry, materials, and lighting determine the next calculation. The render engine can trace additional rays for visibility, reflection, or transmission. An acceleration structure such as a bounding volume hierarchy, or BVH, reduces the number of intersection tests. Physically Based Rendering explains the foundations; NVIDIA's Ray Tracing Essentials introduces the light transport equation.
The main steps
- Camera rays: Camera rays determine which parts of the scene are visible from a viewpoint.
- Additional rays: Additional rays can account for shadows, reflections, refraction, and indirect lighting, depending on the method.
- Acceleration: A BVH or similar structure helps locate intersections efficiently. The renderer usually manages it.
- Sampling and denoising: More samples can reduce noise. Denoising supplements that calculation but may alter fine detail.
How fabric, wood, or metal responds also depends on the material model and its inputs. See our work with materials and surfaces.
From Technical Term to Visual Experience
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View WorkWhat ray tracing contributes to product imagery
Material appearance: Reflections, transmission, and shadows can reveal shape and surface detail. Suitable settings and material references remain essential.
Image series: Documented camera, lighting, and material settings help maintain a coordinated look across images. Changes still need review.
Variations: Cameras, lighting, and materials can be adjusted in a 3D scene. The preparation and the requested change determine how much can be reused and how much work is required.
Interactive views: Ray tracing can be part of a real-time renderer. Whether it suits a web viewer depends on tests with the intended models and devices. WebGPU provides compute shaders, among other capabilities. That does not guarantee smooth browser ray tracing.
Materials and lighting in our projects
Our Natuzzi project presents furniture in designed living spaces. These images show how a product, its materials, and room lighting work together.
Our LS 1912 project for JUNG focuses on the switch. Lighting and camera angle help communicate its shape and surface details.
From materials to the finished image
- Look development: Align product references, material appearance, and visual direction.
- Lighting: Set up lights and, where appropriate, HDRI lighting. Review their effect in test renders.
- Rendering: Calculate views and variations with suitable settings. See our 3D rendering work.
- Post-production: Denoise where needed and combine image passes in compositing. Check product details against the references.
- Output: Prepare image formats, resolution, and color profiles for the agreed channels. An interactive GLB model is a separate deliverable, not a rendered image.
- Delivery: Supply the agreed files. Integration into a store, PIM, or CMS needs to be agreed separately.
Practical checks for rendering
- Renderer settings: Acceleration structures are usually managed automatically. Change their settings only with the renderer's documentation in mind.
- Sampling: Test adaptive sampling and denoising on fabric detail, edges, and, where relevant, animation.
- Glass and caustics: For glass and caustics, check material construction, light paths, and renderer support. An extra pass is not a universal fix.
- Exposure and color: Review light intensity, exposure, and the output view together. Tone mapping cannot replace correcting unsuitable input values.
- Geometry: Match geometry, instances, and memory use to the image. Retopology is an option, not a requirement for every model. See 3D modeling.
Ray tracing and path tracing
Path tracing is part of the ray-tracing family. It estimates light transport using selected, randomly sampled paths; it does not calculate every possible path. Too few samples can leave visible noise.
Classic recursive ray tracing follows paths such as mirror reflections, refraction, and rays toward lights. Modern renderers can combine methods. Relative speed and suitability depend on the scene, implementation, and quality target.
Ray tracing and rasterization
| Criterion | Ray Tracing | Rasterization |
|---|---|---|
| Reflections | Calculated using rays and the chosen material model. | Can use environment maps or screen-space methods; hybrid approaches are also possible. |
| Shadows | Soft or hard, depending on the light, method, and settings. | Soft or hard, depending on the shadow technique. |
| Render time | Depends on the scene, ray count, renderer, and hardware. | Widely used for interactive graphics; scene complexity and effects still matter. |
| Browser use | Possible with suitable implementations. Test devices, browsers, and frame rates. | Common with WebGL and WebGPU. Test the target devices here too. |
The material model is another part of the system. Physically based materials can work with rasterization or ray tracing. Read more about shaders and material maps.
Troubleshooting
Noise and isolated bright pixels: Review sampling, difficult light paths, and material values. More samples or denoising may help; aggressive filtering can remove detail.
Missing caustics: Check geometry, refraction settings, light paths, and renderer support. Methods differ in how well they resolve focused light.
Clipped highlights: Review light intensity, exposure, color management, and the output view together. A different tone mapper alone will not fix an unsuitable lighting setup.
Long render times: Measure the bottleneck before reducing the scene. Geometry, textures, instances, sampling, and memory may be involved. Baking is appropriate only when precomputed effects suit the intended use.
Ray tracing FAQ
Is ray tracing the same as path tracing?
Path tracing is a form of ray tracing. It estimates light transport using selected light paths and can account for direct and indirect lighting. It does not trace every possible path. Sampling, the scene, and the renderer all affect quality and computation time.
Can ray tracing run in a browser?
Yes, with a suitable implementation. WebGPU supports GPU computation that can be used to build ray or path tracers. That does not automatically mean access to dedicated ray-tracing hardware or smooth performance on every device. A web viewer needs tests for loading time, frame rate, and device support.
Does every CGI image need ray tracing?
No. Rasterization, ray tracing, and hybrid methods can each suit different tasks. PBR is not an alternative to those methods: it describes a physically based approach to materials and rendering that can work with different techniques. What matters is whether the product, materials, and image meet the agreed goal.
Which ray-tracing software do you use?
Depending on the project, we work with renderers such as FStorm or Corona. The scene and production workflow guide the choice. Material references, lighting, art direction, and checking the result matter more than the renderer's product name.
When is ray tracing particularly useful?
It can help when reflections, transparent materials, or complex lighting are important to the product image. A representative scene helps determine whether the additional work is worthwhile. Ray tracing alone guarantees neither photorealism nor an accurate representation of the product.
Does ray tracing replace normal maps?
No. Ray tracing and normal maps serve different purposes. A normal map changes the surface direction used for shading but adds no actual geometry and does not change the silhouette. Larger folds or visible edges may therefore require geometry or displacement.