Interactive Ray Tracing Techniques for High-Fidelity Scientific Visualization

This chapter describes rendering techniques and implementation considerations when using ray tracing for interactive scientific and technical visualization. Ray tracing offers a convenient framework for building high-fidelity rendering engines that can directly generate publication-quality images for scientific manuscripts while also providing high interactivity in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get rendering experience. The combination of interactivity with sophisticated rendering enables scientists who are typically not experts in computer graphics or rendering technologies to be able to immediately apply advanced rendering features in their daily work. This chapter summarizes techniques and practical approaches learned from applying ray tracing techniques to scientific visualization, and molecular visualization in particular.