A Framework for Visual Dynamic Analysis of Ray Tracing Algorithms

A novel approach is presented for recording high volume data about ray tracing rendering systems' runtime state and its subsequent dynamic analysis and interactive visualization in the algorithm computational domain. Our framework extracts light paths traced by the system and leverages on a powerful filtering subsystem, helping interactive visualization and exploration of the desired subset of recorded data. We introduce a versatile data logging format and acceleration structures for easy access and filtering. We have implemented a plugin based framework and a tool set that realize all ideas presented in this paper. The framework provides data logging API for instrumenting production-ready, multithreaded, distributed renderers. The framework visualization tool enables deeper understanding of the ray tracing algorithms for novices, as well as for experts.