Ray marching

Simple C++ library for 3D rendering based on a RayMarching concept.

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Table of contents

What is RayMarching?

Environment setup

Troubleshooting

For information about the usage of the package please check out our Doxygen site with the documentation. For more practical use as example code check main.cpp file.

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Concept

We can describe Ray Marching rendering using the algorithm below:

for pixel in Screen:
  steps = 0
  current_point = pixel
  while steps < MAX_STEPS and distance > epsilon:
    distance = infinity
    for object in Scene:
      distance = min(distance, object.SDF(current_point))
    current_point.move(distance)
    steps += 1
  if steps < MAX_STEPS:
    pixel = closest object to the current_point
  else:
    pixel = background color

SDF means Signed Distance Function. It returns distance between given primitive object and point in space. Below is visualization of the process in the 2D space:

Here's example render created using this engine:

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Setup

Installing dependencies

Linux

sudo pacman -S glfw-x11 eigen

CLion

• Go to File -> Settings -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> CMake
• Create new profile Debug
  • CMake options: -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DBUILD_UTEST=OFF
  • leave the rest of options as default
• Create new profile Test
  • CMake options: -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DBUILD_UTEST=ON
  • leave the rest of options as default

Troubleshooting

CMake cannot find GLFW3Config.cmake

This is caused by linux file system case sensitivity. You can simply solve that creating symlink:

sudo ln -s <cmake-libs>/glfw3/glfw3Config.cmake <cmake-libs>/glfw3/GLFW3Config.cmake