# Ray Tracing 004: The Ray Class

## The Ray Class

In episode 3 I added a vec3 class to help with 3-dimensional vector calculations.

This chapter moves it one step further by introducing a new ray class. A ray can be thought of as a function

$p(t) = A + t * B$

where p is a 3D position along a line, A is the ray origin, B is the ray direction, and t is the ray parameter which moves p(t) along the ray.

If t is positive you get the points in front of the origin A, also called a half-line or half-ray.

Below I’ll only include new and modified parts of the code. Please check my git-repository at github.com/celeph/ray-tracing for the complete example code with makefile.

The ray class is a literal implementation of the equation in 3D vectors:

// ray.h
#ifndef RAYH
#define RAYH
#include "vec3.h"

class ray {
public:
vec3 A;
vec3 B;

ray() {}
ray(const vec3& a, const vec3& b) { A = a; B = b; }

vec3 origin() const { return A; }
vec3 direction() const { return B; }
vec3 point_at_parameter(float t) const { return A + t * B; }
};
#endif


The new loop in the main program moves the ray across the entire image and determines a color at each pixel. At this time it will only return the color of a gradient based on the y-position.

The size of the image is set to 4 x 2, where the origin is set into the center of image (0,0,0), the lower left corner is at (-2,-1,-1), the upper right corner is at (2,1,-1). The z-coordinate is set at -1 into the screen to respect the convention of a right-handed coordinate system.

The screen is 1 unit apart from the origin (eye or camera). Positive values for z are behind the camera.

// ray-example.cpp
#include <iostream>
#include "vec3.h"
#include "ray.h"

vec3 color(const ray& r) {
vec3 unit_direction = unit_vector(r.direction());
float t = 0.5f * (unit_direction.y() + 1.0f);
return (1.0f - t) * vec3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f) + t * vec3(0.5f, 0.7f, 1.0f);
}

int main() {
int nx = 200;
int ny = 100;

std::cout << "P3\n" << nx << " " << ny << "\n255\n";
vec3 lower_left_corner(-2.0, -1.0, -1.0);
vec3 horizontal(4.0, 0.0, 0.0);
vec3 vertical(0.0, 2.0, 0.0);
vec3 origin(0.0, 0.0, 0.0);

for (int j = ny-1; j >= 0; j--) {
for (int i = 0; i < nx; i++) {
float u = float(i) / float(nx);
float v = float(j) / float(ny);
ray r(origin, lower_left_corner + u * horizontal + v * vertical);
vec3 col = color(r);

int ir = int(255.99 * col[0]);
int ig = int(255.99 * col[1]);
int ib = int(255.99 * col[2]);

std::cout << ir << " " << ig << " " << ib << "\n";
}
}
}


The color() function takes the current ray’s direction and computes a unit-direction. This is a vector of length 1 as illustrated in the drawning before. The unit vector is calculated as follows:

$\bold{\hat{u}} = \bold{\frac{u}{|u|}}$ $\bold{|u|} = \sqrt{u_x^2 + u_y^2 + u_z^2}$

Example: For vector $$\bold{u}$$:

$\bold{u} = \begin{pmatrix} 2 \\ 3 \\ 4 \end{pmatrix}$

I get a vector length $$|\bold{u}|$$ of about 5.39:

\begin{aligned}\bold{|u|} & = \sqrt{2^2 + 3^2 + 4^2} \\\\ & = \sqrt{4+9+16} \\\\ & = \sqrt{29} \approx 5.39 \end{aligned}

The unit vector $$\bold{\hat{u}}$$ is:

$\bold{\hat{u}} = \bold{\frac{u}{|u|}} = \begin{pmatrix} \frac{2}{\sqrt{29}} \\ \frac{3}{\sqrt{29}} \\ \frac{4}{\sqrt{29}} \end{pmatrix} \approx \begin{pmatrix} 0.37 \\ 0.56 \\ 0.74 \end{pmatrix}$

To double-check, the length of the unit vector is 1:

\begin{aligned}\left|\begin{pmatrix} 0.37 \\ 0.56 \\ 0.74 \end{pmatrix}\right| &= \sqrt{0.37^2 + 0.56^2 + 0.74^2} \\\\ & = \sqrt{0.14 + 0.31 + 0.55} = 1 \end{aligned}

Here is also an image with the example vector, its components and the resulting unit vector.

The y-component of this unit vector can take values from -1 to +1. To turn this into a range from 0 to 1, I add 1.0 to the value and divide it by 2.

The next line,

return (1.0f - t) * vec3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f) + t * vec3(0.5f, 0.7f, 1.0f);


creates a linear interpolation (or “lerp”) between white and blue. When t is 1 the first half of the equation turns 0 and leaves blue (0.5, 0.7, 1.0). And when t is 0, the second half turns 0 and leaves white (1.0, 1.0, 1.0).

Values between 0 and 1 will produce a color in between. Smaller t (y-coordinates towards the bottom of the image) result in brighter blue to white colors. Larger t (y-coordinates towards the top of the image) produce darker tones of blue.

Inside the loop I’m converting the pixel coordinates (from 0-199 in x-direction, from 0-99 in y-direction) to the world coordinate system (from -2 to +2 in x-direction, -1 to +1 in y-direction).

ray r(origin, lower_left_corner + u * horizontal + v * vertical);
vec3 col = color(r);


## Javascript and Canvas

Here’s also the same example in Javascript.