3D RENDERING ENGINE

Overview

This engine renders three-dimensional scenes within a two-dimensional workspace, emphasizing correctness, lighting realism, and spatial reasoning.

Built from scratch without hardware acceleration, the renderer provides complete control over every pixel and illuminates the fundamental mathematics of computer graphics.

Rendering Pipeline

• Ray casting for visibility determination
• Intersection testing against scene geometry
• Phong-style lighting model with ambient, diffuse, and specular components
• Camera-space transformations for perspective projection

Design Choices

The engine avoids hardware acceleration to maintain full control over the rendering pipeline and to deepen understanding of core graphics algorithms.

This pedagogical approach reveals the underlying mathematics: vector operations, matrix transformations, and the geometric relationships that modern GPUs abstract away. Every ray, every intersection, every lighting calculation is explicit and accessible.

Output

The renderer produces photorealistic images with accurate perspective, smooth shading, and realistic lighting. Performance is optimized through spatial data structures and efficient intersection algorithms.

Planned Extensions

• Recursive reflections for mirror surfaces and glass
• Acceleration structures (BVH) for complex scenes
• Physically-based materials (PBR) with roughness and metallic properties
• Global illumination with path tracing
• Texture mapping and normal maps