TAPESTRY: The Art of Representation and Abstraction
Ray Tracing Limitations
The problem with ray tracing
Flat, Gouraud, and Phong rendering do OK jobs of rendering diffuse (dull, matte) surfaces, while ray tracing does a good job on specular (shiny, reflective) surfaces. The problem with ray tracing is that it only considers totally specular interactions, where rays either reflect perfectly or refract perfectly. As a consequence, ray traced scenes don't show "color bleed". Too bad. The earlier shading algorithms don't show it either, since it represents an interaction between parts of the geometry, and they (fundamentally) process one polygon at a time. However, there are ways to simulate the scene that will exhibit color bleed (see radiosity and raydiosity(tm)).
Last updated: April, 2014
