CUDA Ray Marching

Colored Mandelbulb

With the depth coloring algorithm applied, it gets much prettier

Detail Zoom

Since it is a algorithmically generated fractal, close zoom can be achieved with no clarity loss

Rotation

The camera can "easily" be rotated to show different parts of the fractal

Sweet Swirls

Mandelbulbs have sweet swirls that reveal more detail when zoomed

Color Shift

By changing the coloring radius parameters, the coloring can be altered

Different Powers

Changing the power of the distance estimator equation has a large effect on the result

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Ray Marching Technology

Ray marching involves marching the testing point along a ray using a disntance estimator function. Distance estimators calculate the distance from a given point to the closest portion of the fractal. Calculating the distance to the closest point is much simpler than a true intersection point test.

Once The ray has been marched close enough that the distance estimator returns a small enough value, the point on the ray is assumed to be the intersection.

The surface normal can be computed for lighting by sampling the distance equation along the major axes. The direction in which the distance increases the most is theoretically the normal direction.

Coloring can be calculated in many ways. My renderer just assigns a color to the distance from the intersection point to the origin of world space.

This blog post has excellent explanations of how to implement this and was an awesome reference.

CSC 473 Final Project

By Kevin Schapansky

Renderings