Publisher's Synopsis
When we look at the world around us, light tells the story. It reflects off surfaces, refracts through glass, scatters in fog, and softens in shadows. Reproducing these behaviors with code is both a scientific challenge and an artistic pursuit. For decades, computer graphics have relied on rasterization - a fast and efficient process that turns 3D geometry into 2D images. But while rasterization has brought us beautiful games and interactive applications, it often requires complex tricks to simulate how light actually behaves. Ray-tracing changes that story.
This book was born from a simple realization: the world needed a practical, complete, and approachable guide to Vulkan ray-tracing - one that empowers both curious newcomers and seasoned graphics developers alike. After years spent building real-time graphics engines, teaching workshops, and experimenting with the latest GPU features, we saw firsthand the gap between the potential of Vulkan's ray-tracing extensions and the resources available to harness them effectively. This book is our answer to that gap. Vulkan ray-tracing is more than just a collection of new GPU features - it's a pivotal shift in how real-time graphics are conceived and created. It allows you to simulate light in a way that's far closer to the physical world, producing results that were once reserved only for offline rendering. Thanks to modern hardware from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel, along with Khronos-standardized extensions, real-time ray-tracing is no longer a technical curiosity - it's a production-ready tool accessible across platforms.
