Perhaps he really is looking for Ray Casting (in the context of surfaces, versus volumes) if he's looking for an alternative to Ray Tracing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting Excerpt: Ray casting is not a synonym for ray tracing<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_%28graphics%29>, but can be thought of as an abridged, and significantly faster, version of the ray tracing algorithm. Both are image order<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_and_object_order_rendering>algorithms used in computer graphics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics> to render<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_%28computer_graphics%29>three dimensional scenes to two dimensional screens by following rays <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_%28optics%29> of light<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light>from the eye <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_geometry> of the observer to a light source. Ray casting does not compute the new direction a ray of light might take after intersecting a surface on its way from the eye to the source of light. This eliminates the possibility of accurately rendering reflections <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_%28physics%29>, refractions <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractions>, or the natural falloff of shadows <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow>; however all of these elements can be faked to a degree, by creative use of texture<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_%28computer_graphics%29>maps or other methods. The high speed of calculation made ray casting a handy rendering method in early real-time 3D video games. -Rob On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 3:17 AM, Chris Barber <chris at cb1inc.com> wrote: > Do you mean ray marching? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_ray_casting > > * > > * > On 1/31/10 11:53 PM, Ryan Hanson wrote: > > To the people who went to the penguins unbound thingy on Saturday. > I'm trying to figure out the other alternative to Ray Tracing that used > stepping. > > I tried searching for Ray Stepping but I didn't find anything. > > Any help? > > Thanks > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesotatclug-list at mn-linux.orghttp://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100201/3c91b2fe/attachment.htm