Final year raytracer project ideas

[ellipsoid]

TL;DR Summary

raytracer project ideas for final year university project

Hi there. I am about to enter my final year of a computer science bachelor degree and must do a final year project that spans most of the academic year. I have some experience on the artistic side of computer graphics but none in the computer science side. I would be interested in developing some kind of ray tracer as a final year project but have been told that my project should be technically challenging, have a reason for someone to use my version over any existing version and solve some kind of particular problem.

Perhaps I am out of my depth trying to develop a ray tracer that can satisfy the above criteria when I have no prior experience?

Some have talked about making one that runs better than existing solutions or being optimised for something in particular. I am not quite sure how I could do this and would greatly appreciate and thoughts, ideas or suggestions on this or any unique relatively unexplored areas of raytracing I could base a project around?

Many thanks

 

[berkeman]

I am about to enter my final year of a computer science bachelor degree

I have some experience on the artistic side of computer graphics but none in the computer science side

How in the world are you going to graduate with a BS in Computer Science with no experience in Computer Science? That would seem to make no sense.

Some have talked about making one that runs better than existing solutions or being optimised for something in particular. I am not quite sure how I could do this and would greatly appreciate and thoughts, ideas or suggestions on this or any unique relatively unexplored areas of raytracing I could base a project around?

Ray tracing programs are pretty well developed and basic, unless you do something weird with non-linear optics and/or aspheric lenses. You could maybe do a ray tracing program with graphics for the JWST, which would be interesting and involve the multiple mirrors, etc., but it would not be rocket science (sorry for the pun).

 

[FactChecker]

I have some experience on the artistic side of computer graphics but none in the computer science side.

I assume you mean none on the computer graphics side.

I would be interested in developing some kind of ray tracer as a final year project but have been told that my project should be technically challenging, have a reason for someone to use my version over any existing version and solve some kind of particular problem.

Perhaps I am out of my depth trying to develop a ray tracer that can satisfy the above criteria when I have no prior experience?

IMHO, the first thing to learn in computer science is to use the existing tools. Getting buried in the details of developing a ray tracer is not very valuable. Use the existing ray-tracing software tools. BUT you should definitely find out what the instructor had in mind.

 

[aaroman]

Implementing a simple ray tracing project is not a big deal but once you go further into the details it can take some time... I implemented a project just for fun (source code here: https://github.com/aromanro/RayTracer ) but it still has a lot of things left out that can be considered 'technically challenging' (for example, addition of importance sampling for composite/complex objects).

Knowing how things work can be very valuable.