RENDERING RESEARCH PROJECT

Spectral PathTracer

A personal CUDA project for exploring wavelength-sampled light transport, dispersion and spectral-to-display color conversion.

View source and research notes on GitHub

IMPLEMENTED

  • Spectral wavelength sampling
  • Wavelength-dependent refraction
  • CUDA path tracing
  • Spectral-to-display color conversion
  • Diffuse, emissive and dielectric materials

VALIDATION STATUS

Available
Focused automated tests, three demonstration scenes and measured Cornell spectra.
Still missing
An external reference-renderer comparison, a recorded GPU and render-time benchmark, and BVH support for production-scale scenes.
Inspect the automated tests → Inspect the render configuration →
Cornell Box render with a dispersive prism
Cornell Box and dispersive prism
Exterior render of a glass prism
Exterior prism showcase
Spectral renderer material showcase
Material showcase

TRANSFERABLE SKILLS

GPU debugging, numerical validation, renderer architecture, performance profiling and physically-based lighting knowledge.

What I learned

I learned to separate spectral transport from the conversion needed for display. Small test scenes made dispersion and material behavior easier to verify. CUDA performance work was most useful when paired with clear visual checks.

Credits and confidentiality

Production
Personal R&D project
Role
Project creator — renderer architecture, CUDA and C++ implementation
Work by others
CUDA, CMake and the compiler toolchain are third-party technologies. No third-party production artwork is shown.
Confidentiality
No NDA. The source code is public on GitHub.