Ray tracing

I have built ray tracers for my art for years. ShadyTracer is the latest one: a path tracer that runs in the browser, on the graphics card.

It treats light as something to measure. It follows light through glass, mirrors and coatings, including the bright patterns that glass throws onto a surface: the caustics. It also handles dispersion, where white light splits into colours, and haze that makes beams of light visible.

In my work as a lighting engineer I use it to measure and design. For my art I use it differently. I build 3D scenes that play with light and optics, and explore abstract digital work without writing code. Small blocks of code are possible, but not needed.