Optical Simulation using Ray Tracing Engines

There are a number of Render Engines which are suitable for optical simulation. Here we introduce three of them. Cycles, LuxRender and Yafaray which are all compatible with Blender. LuxRender is also compatible with other packages including SketchUp, C4D, 3DS Max, and Maya.

Cycles

Cycles is a ray tracing renderer focused on interactivity and ease of use. It supports basic ray tracing features such as reflection and refraction. Cycles is also able to use the GPU to render.

Yafaray

LuxRender

Overview

LuxRender is a physically based and unbiased rendering engine. Based on state of the art algorithms, LuxRender simulates the flow of light according to physical equations, thus producing realistic images of photographic quality.

LuxRender is now a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy which provides administrative and financial support to FOSS projects. This allows us to receive donations, which can be tax deductible in the US.

Get LuxRender

LuxRender is free software – both for personal and commercial use – and is licensed under the GPL.

Major features

Changes in the 1.5 version in video.

Physically based spectral rendering

LuxRender is built on physically based equations that model the transportation of light. This allows it to accurately capture a wide range of phenomena which most other rendering programs are simply unable to reproduce. This also means that it fully supports high-dynamic range (HDR) rendering.

Materials

LuxRender features a variety of material types. Apart from generic materials such as matte and glossy, physically accurate representations of metal, glass, and car paint are present. Complex properties such as absorption, dispersive refraction and thin film coating are available.

Fleximage (virtual film)

The virtual film allows you to pause and continue a rendering at any time. The current state of the rendering can even be written to a file, so that the computer (or even another computer) can continue rendering at a later moment.

Free for everyone

LuxRender is and will always be free software, both for private and commercial use. It is being developed by people with a passion for programming and for computer graphics who like sharing their work. We encourage you to download LuxRender and use it to express your artistic ideas. (learn more)