NoorRay

My personal path tracer for exploring graphics programming and testing out new rendering techniques.

Features

• Multiple Backends: Implements path tracing with both Vulkan hardware-accelerated ray tracing (via the official Vulkan ray tracing extension) and a compute-shader fallback.

• Path Tracing with MIS: Uses unidirectional path tracing with multiple importance sampling (MIS). Supports combined Lambertian diffuse and GGX specular materials.

• Scene Loading: Supports loading scenes from Wavefront .obj files and Khronos .gltf files.

• Material System: Full Disney PBR support with albedo, roughness, metallic, normal, transmission, opacity, and emission.

• ImGui Interface: Provides a user interface to edit scene parameters, including camera settings, scene graph, and material properties in real-time.

• Cross-Platform: Supports Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

Build Instructions

Prerequisites

• Vulkan SDK: Ensure the Vulkan SDK is installed and the VULKAN_SDK environment variable is set.
• CMake: Version 3.10 or higher.
• Compiler: A C++23-compatible compiler. MinGW is recommended (on Windows) due to usage of the #embed directive in the source code.

Clone the Repository

Clone the repository including its submodules:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/Ka1serM/VulkanToyPathtracer.git
cd VulkanToyPathtracer

Building the Project

1. Create a build directory:

   mkdir build
   cd build

2. Configure the project with CMake (MinGW + Release mode):

   cmake .. -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON

3. Build the project:

   cmake --build . --config Release

4. Run the executable:

   The output executable will be located in the build/ directory.

Shader Compilation

The shaders are compiled using glslc from the Vulkan SDK. A recompile.bat script is provided in the src/Shaders directory to automate this process.

1. Navigate to the shader directory:

   cd src/Shaders

2. Run the script:

   recompile.bat

   This script compiles GLSL shaders to SPIR-V bytecode using glslc.

Dependencies

This project uses the following libraries (included as submodules):

• SDL3
• Dear ImGui
• GLM
• portable-file-dialogs
• tinyobjloader
• tinygltf
• stb_image