Caustic Graphics readies new raytracing system.(PRODUCT: RAYTRACING)

Newcomer Caustic Graphics introduced CausticRT, a massively accelerated raytracing system for achieving breakthrough levels of quality in interactive, cinema-quality 3D computer graphics. The Caustic development platform, which includes a raytracing accelerator card and SDK, is now available to qualified developers.

Raytracing duplicates the natural physics of light, creating stunning images by meticulously tracing the path of light to and throughout any given scene. Light rays naturally scatter in many different directions (incoherent rays), and tracing and shading them require memory access to many disparate parts of the scene, a previously impossible caching task. CausticRT, based on a new algorithm that addresses this issue, organizes incoherent rays into a data flow that takes advantage of the full computational power of CPUs and GPUs. CausticRT does not displace a GPU or CPU in a graphics system; rather, it acts as a co-processor that traces rays and schedules the results in a manner that allows GPUs or CPUs to shade them as ...