Ray tracing in Mac OS X

• Main Author: Lim, Bing Yan
• Other Authors: Alexei Sourin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Software::Software engineering; DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computing methodologies::Computer graphics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/59013
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This project is a feasibility study on programming of computer graphics on the Apple computer, particularly in ray-tracing. The aim of the project is also to create a working port of the popular ray-tracing application, POV-Ray for the Apple Computers. The project takes into consideration that one of the main focus of the project is to create an application that is not only able to perform the functions that the POV-Ray for Windows program is capable of, but also to retain, as much as possible, the layout and aesthetics of the original graphical user interface elements. The report first explores the possible approaches for achieving the project objective by taking stock of the current available resources. The type of resources gathered range from the source code for POV-Ray on the different operating systems that is available on the offical POV-Ray website to the source codes of third-party ports and emulating or virtualizing environments. As a performance measure to aid in the selection process of the different approaches, the render timings for each approach was taken against several different resolutions of the same POV-Ray scene file. After the survey and evaluation of the gathered information, the most appropriate approach, which used the existing available source code for Linux, was selected. In this report, the technical details of the implementation is detailed with screenshots to aid in the visualization process. The implementation starts with the development of the GUI, detailing the methods employed when dealing with and creating the GUI in XCode. Following which the report then elaborates on the porting of the Unix source into the OS X development environment and then followed by the writing of the adapter layer that bridges the gap between the GUI and the POV-Ray source. The structure of the implementation section in the report reflects the implementation flow and process in the project, that is, starting with the GUI, the project moves on to the POV-Ray source and then combining the two with the adapter layer. The report then concludes with a section featuring the completed application along with the conclusion of the entire project and future recommendations for further improving the application. The report covers the project management process briefly but is focused mainly on the implementation of the application. The future recommendations section includes additional components that go beyond the scope of this project but some of which are implemented or on-going implementations of other related projects.