Cook, Porter and Carpenter Introduce Distributed Ray Tracing

A critical technique in computer graphics, the distributed ray tracing algorithm, was developed by Loren Carptenter, Robert Cook and Thomas Porter for Lucasfilm and described in detail in this paper. Carpenter famously also developed fractal techniques for motion graphics in 1982. Distributed ray tracing allowed for motion blur effects.

Ray tracing enables the rendering of advanced lighting phenomena such as “shadows, reflections, and refracted light, phenomena that are difficult or impossible with other techniques.” However, there were limitations that Carpenter and his team solved, as outlined in the paper:

“By distributing the directions of the rays according to the analytic function they sample, ray tracing can incorporate fuzzy phenomena. This provides correct and easy solutions to some previously unsolved or partially solved problems, including motion blur, depth of field, penumbras, translucency, and fuzzy reflections.”