Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#1

Post by cremno » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 3:40 AM UTC

Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer
fabiensanglard.net

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#2

Post by dinkumthinkum » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:12 AM UTC

Very nice article and straight to the point. It's really nice to see a pithy discussion and impressive demonstration.

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#3

Post by jevinskie » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:13 AM UTC

Would the wasted empty space in a #define return make up for the several return statements that I see? That is why typedef statements are nice, you can ; terminate them!

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#4

Post by milesf » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:28 AM UTC

The output file is .aek but I can't figure out what to do with it. My Google-fu is failing me this evening.

How do you view the output?

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#5

Post by gilgoomesh » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:31 AM UTC

milesf wrote: post #4

The output file is .aek but I can't figure out what to do with it. My Google-fu is failing me this evening. How do you view the output?

The output is PPM, not AEK (that's Andrew Kensler's initials). Use PPM as the extension (similar to PGM, PNM and others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpbm_format). It's not very common in consumer products (too primitive) but you can open in Gimp, Preview.app, IrfanView, XV and lots of others.

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#6

Post by lesterbuck » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:31 AM UTC

milesf wrote: post #4

The output file is .aek but I can't figure out what to do with it. My Google-fu is failing me this evening. How do you view the output?

Yes, same problem. Google suggests it is an Adobe After Effects file. Linux "file" reports it as

card.aek: Netpbm PPM "rawbits" image data, size = 512 x 512

Not sure how to view Netpbm (portable bit map).

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#7

Post by carterschonwald » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:33 AM UTC

milesf wrote: post #4

The output file is .aek but I can't figure out what to do with it. My Google-fu is failing me this evening. How do you view the output?

if you read further, you'll see its supposed to be .ppm, but the article author made a typo :)

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#8

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

milesf wrote: post #4

The output file is .aek but I can't figure out what to do with it. My Google-fu is failing me this evening. How do you view the output?

[deleted]

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#9

Post by Pitarou » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:38 AM UTC

milesf wrote: post #4

The output file is .aek but I can't figure out what to do with it. My Google-fu is failing me this evening. How do you view the output?

If you're using Linux or OSX, run it like this:

  ./aek > aek.ppm

That will produce an image in .ppm format. ('The world's second-dumbest picture format.') You'll probably have to convert it to a more widely supported format. Make sure you have the netpbm package installed, and then run, say:

  pbmtopng aek.ppm > aek.bmp

Re: Deciphering the Business Card Raytracer

#10

Post by Rangi42 » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 4:38 AM UTC

jevinskie wrote: post #3

Would the wasted empty space in a #define return make up for the several return statements that I see? That is why typedef statements are nice, you can ; terminate them!

The original ended on line 35, column 28. By #defining return as u, it ends at line 35, column 19. Although I had to split the number 231184 across two lines (2311\84) to avoid a gap at the end of the line.

http://pastebin.com/6rM895SC