A good theory book is _An Introduction to Ray Tracing_ edited by Andrew
Glassner (I'm a co-author, so count that into the bias factor), from
Academic Press.

A book with a mix of theory and application that's worthwhile is _Photorealism
and Ray Tracing in C_ by Christopher Watkins, Stephen Coy and Mark Finlay,
from M&T Books. It presents the Bob ray tracer (essentially Vivid) and comes
with a number of procedural model builders, a cheapo scene editor, and other
fun stuff, all on a disk with the book. Some nice color plate images, too.

- Eric Haines


Computer graphics FTP site list
-------------------------------

Computer graphics related FTP sites (and maintainers), 1/7/93
compiled by Eric Haines, [email protected]
and Nick Fotis, [email protected]

Ray-tracers:
------------

RayShade - a great ray tracer for workstations on up, also for PC, Mac & Amiga.
PoV - son and successor to DKB trace, written by Compuservers.
(For more questions call Drew Wells --
7[email protected] or Dave Buck -- [email protected])
Radiance - see "Radiosity", below.
ART - ray tracer with a good range of surface types, part of VORT package.
DKBtrace - another good ray tracer, from all reports; PCs, Mac II,
Amiga, UNIX, VMS (last two with X11 previewer), etc.
RTrace - Portugese ray tracer, does bicubic patches, CSG, 3D text, etc. etc.
An MS-DOS version for use with DJGPP DOS extender (GO32) exists also,
as a Mac port.
VIVID2 - A shareware raytracer for PCs - binary only (286/287). Author:
Stephen Coy ([email protected]). The 386/387 (no source) version
is available to registered users (US$50) direct from the author.
RAY4 - Steve Hollasch's 4-dimensional ray tracer - renders hyperspheres,
hypertetrahedra, hyperplanes, and hyperparallelepipeds (there's
a separate real-time wireframe viewer written in GL called WIRE4 ) .
MTV,QRT,DBW - yet more ray tracers, some with interesting features.

Distributed/Parallel Raytracers:
--------------------------------

XDART - A distributed ray-tracer that runs under X11. There are server binaries
which work only on DECstations, SPARCs, HP Snakes (7x0 series) and NeXT.
The clients are distributed as binaries and C source.
Inetray - A network version of Rayshade 4.0. Needs Sun RPC 4.0 or newer.
Contact Andreas Thurnherr ([email protected])
prt, VM_pRAY - parallel ray tracers.

Volume renderers:
-----------------

VREND - Cornell's Volume Renderer, from Kartch/Devine/Caffey/Warren (FORTRAN).

Radiosity (and diffuse lighting) renderers:
-------------------------------------------

Radiance - a ray tracer w/radiosity effects, by Greg Ward. Excellent shading
models and physically based lighting simulation. Unix/X based, though
has been ported to the Amiga and the PC (386).
INDIA - An Indian radiosity package based on Radiance.
SGI_RAD - An interactive radiosity package that runs on SGI machines with a
Spaceball. It includes a house database.
Author: Guy Moreillon
RAD - a simple public-domain radiosity package in C. The solution can be run
stand-alone on any Unix box, but the walk-through requires a SGI 4D.
Author: Bernard Kwok

Renderers which are not raytracers, and graphics libraries:
-----------------------------------------------------------

SIPP - Scan line z-buffer and Phong shading renderer.
Now uses the shadow buffer algorithm.
VOGLE - graphics learning environment (device portable).
VOGL - an SGI GL-like library based on VOGLE.
REND386 - A *fast* polygon renderer for Intel 386s and up. Version 2 on up.
[ It's not photorealistic, but rather a real-time renderer]
XSHARP21 - Dr. Dobb's Journal PC renderer source code, with budget texture
mapping.

Modellers, wireframe viewers:
-----------------------------

VISION-3D - Mac modeler, can output Radiance & Rayshade files.
IRIT - A CSG solid modeler, with support for freeform surfaces.
X3D - A wireframe viewer for X11.
3DV - 3-D wireframe graphics toolkit, with C source, 3dv objects, other stuff
Look at major PC archives like wuarchive. One such file is 3DKIT1.ZIP

Geometric viewers:
------------------

SALEM - A GL-based package from Dobkin et al. for exploring mathematical
structures.
GEOMVIEW - A GL-based package for looking and interactively manipulating
3D objects, from Geometry Center at Minnesota.
XYZ GeoBench -(eXperimental geometrY Zurich) is a workbench for geometric
computation for Macintosh computers.
WIRE4 - GL wireframe previewer for Steve Hollasch's RAY4 (see above)

Data Formats and Data Sets for Ray Tracing:
-------------------------------------------

SPD - a set of procedural databases for testing ray tracers.
NFF - simplistic file format used by SPD.
OFF - another file format.
P3D - a lispy file format.
TDDD - Imagine (3D modeler) format, has converters for RayShade, NFF, OFF, etc.
Also includes a nice postscript object displayer. Some GREAT models.
TTDDDLIB - converts to/from TDDD/TTDDD, OFF, NFF, Rayshade 4.0, Imagine,
and vort 3d objects. Also outputs Framemaker MIF files and isometric
views in Postscript. Registered users get a TeX PK font converter and
a superquadric surfaces generator.
Glenn Lewis
[Note : TTDDDLIB is also known as T3DLIB]
CHVRTD - Chapel Hill Volume Rendering Test Datasets, includes volume sets for
two heads, a brain, a knee, electron density maps for RNA and others.

Written Material on Rendering:
------------------------------

RT News - collections of articles on ray tracing.
RT bib - references to articles on ray tracing in "refer" format.
Rad bib - references to articles on radiosity (global illumination).
Speer RT bib - Rick Speer's cross-referenced RT bib, in postscript.
RT abstracts - collection by Tom Wilson of abstracts of many RT articles.
Paper bank project - various technical papers in electronic form. Contact
Juhana Kouhia

Image Manipulation Libraries:
-----------------------------

Utah Raster Toolkit - nice image manipulation tools.
PBMPLUS - a great package for image conversion and manipulation.
LIBTIFF - library for reading/writing TIFF images.
ImageMagick - X11 package for display and interactive manipulation
of images. Uses its own format (MIFF), and includes some converters.
xv - X-based image display, manipulation, and format converter.
xloadimage, xli - displays various formats on an X11 screen.
Khoros - a huge, excellent system for image processing, with a visual
programming interface and much much more. Uses X windows.
FBM - another set of image manipulation tools, somewhat old now.
Img - image manipulation, displays on X11 screen, a bit old now.


Libraries with code for graphics:
---------------------------------

Graphics Gems I,II,III - code from the ever so useful books.
spline-patch.tar.Z - spline patch ray intersection routines by Sean Graves

(*) means site is an "official" distributor, so is most up to date.


NORTH AMERICA (please look for things on your own continent first...):
-------------

wuarchive.wustl.edu [128.252.135.4]: /graphics/graphics - get CONTENTS file
for a roadmap. /graphics/graphics/objects/TDDD - *the TTDDD objects
and converters*, /mirrors/unix-c/graphics - Rayshade ray tracer, MTV
ray tracer, Vort ray tracer, FBM, PBMPLUS, popi, Utah raster toolkit.
/mirrors/msdos/graphics - DKB ray tracer, FLI RayTracker demos.
/pub/rad.tar.Z - *SGI_RAD*, /graphics/graphics/radiosity - Radiance
and Indian radiosity package. /msdos/ddjmag/ddj9209.zip - version 21
of Xsharp, with fast texture mapping. /msdos/graphics - PC graphics
stuff, including rtn.zip - all (?) RTN newsletters, graphgem.zip -
all three Gems code, rad386.zip - Radiance on a 386. There's lots
more, including bibs, Graphics Gems I & II code, OFF, RTN, Radiance,
NFF, SIPP, spline patch intersection routines, textbook errata, source
code from Roy Hall's book "Illumination and Color in Computer
Generated Imagery", Hershey fonts, etc
George Kyriazis

princeton.edu [128.112.128.1]: /pub/Graphics (note capital "G") - *Rayshade
4.0 ray tracer (and separate 387 executable)*, *color quantization
code*, *SPD*, *RT News*, *Wilson's RT abstracts*, "RT bib*, *Utah
Raster Toolkit*, newer FBM, *Graphics Gems I, II & III code*.
/pub/graphics directory - *SALEM* and other stuff.
Craig Kolb
[replaces weedeater.math.yale.edu - note the capital "G" in
pub/Graphics] Because there's a trouble with princeton's incoming
area, you can upload Rayshade-specific stuff to
weedeater.math.yale.edu [128.36.23.17]

alfred.ccs.carleton.ca [134.117.1.1]: /pub/dkbtrace - *DKB ray tracer*,
/pub/pov-ray/POV-Ray1.0 - *PVRay Compuserve group ray tracer (or PoV)*.
David Buck

avalon.chinalake.navy.mil [129.131.31.11]: 3D objects (multiple formats),
utilities, file format documents.
This site was created to be a 3D object "repository" for the net.
Francisco X DeJesus

omicron.cs.unc.edu [152.2.128.159]: pub/softlab/CHVRTD - Chapel Hill
Volume Rendering Test Datasets.

ftp.mv.com [192.80.84.1]: - Official DDJ FTP repository.
*XSHARP*

acs.cps.msu.edu [35.8.56.90]: pub/sass - *X window fonts converter into
Rayshade 3.0 polygons*, Rayshade animation tool(s).
Ron Sass

hobbes.lbl.gov [128.3.12.38]: *Radiance* ray trace/radiosity package.
Greg Ward

geom.umn.edu [128.101.25.31] : pub/geomview - *GEOMVIEW*
Contact (for GEOMVIEW): [email protected]

ftp.kpc.com [144.52.120.9] : /pub/graphics/holl91 - Steve Hollasch's
Thesis, /pub/graphics/ray4 - *RAY4*, /pub/graphics/wire4 - *WIRE4*.
Steve Hollasch

swedishchef.lerc.nasa.gov [139.88.54.33] : programs/hollasch-4d - RAY4,
SGI Explorer modules and Postscript manual, etc.

zamenhof.cs.rice.edu [128.42.1.75] : pub/graphics.formats - Various electronic
documents about many object and image formats.
Mark Hall
will apparently no longer be maintaining it, see ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu.

rascal.ics.utexas.edu [128.83.144.1]: /misc/mac/inqueue - VISION-3D facet
based modeller, can output RayShade and Radiance files.

ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu [141.142.20.50] : misc/file.formats/graphics.formats -
contains various image- and object-format descriptions. Many SciVi
tools in various directories, e.g. SGI/Alpha-shape/Alvis-1.0.tar.Z -
3D alpha-shape visualizer (SGI machines only),
SGI/Polyview3.0/polyview.Z - interactive visualization and analysis of
3D geometrical structures.
Quincey Koziol

ftp.ipl.rpi.edu [128.113.14.50]: sigma/erich - SPD images and Haines thesis
images. pub/images - various 24 and 8 bit image stills and sequences.
Kevin Martin

ftp.psc.edu [128.182.66.148]: pub/p3d - p3d_2_0.tar P3D lispy scene
language & renderers. Joel Welling

ftp.ee.lbl.gov [128.3.254.68]: *pbmplus.tar.Z*, RayShade data files.
Jef Poskanzer

george.lbl.gov [128.3.196.93]: pub/ccs-lib/ccs.tar.Z - *CCS (Complex
Conversion System), a standard software interface for image processing*

hanauma.stanford.edu [36.51.0.16]: /pub/graphics/Comp.graphics - best of
comp.graphics (very extensive), ray-tracers - DBW, MTV, QRT, and more.
Joe Dellinger

ftp.uu.net [192.48.96.2]: /graphics - *IRIT*, RT News back issues (not
complete), NURBS models, other graphics related material.
/graphics/jpeg/jpegsrc.v?.tar.Z - Independent JPEG Group package for
reading and writing JPEG files.

freebie.engin.umich.edu [141.212.68.23]: *Utah Raster Toolkit*,
Spencer Thomas

export.lcs.mit.edu [18.24.0.12] : /contrib - pbmplus, Image Magick, xloadimage,
xli, xv, Img, lots more. /pub/R5untarred/mit/demos/gpc - NCGA Graphics
Performance Characterization (GPC) Suite.

life.pawl.rpi.edu [128.113.10.2]: /pub/ray - *Kyriazis stochastic Ray Tracer*.
George Kyriazis

cs.utah.edu [128.110.4.21]: /pub - Utah raster toolkit, *NURBS databases*.
Jamie Painter

gatekeeper.dec.com [16.1.0.2]: /pub/DEC/off.tar.Z - *OFF models*,
/pub/misc/graf-bib - *graphics bibliographies (incomplete)* [new
bibliography currently under construction by siggraph.org] Also GPC
Benchmark files (planned, but not checked).
Randi Rost

hubcap.clemson.edu [130.127.8.1]: /pub/amiga/incoming/imagine - stuff for the
Amiga Imagine & Turbo Silver ray tracers. /pub/amiga/TTDDDLIB -
*TTDDDLIB* /pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/objects - MANY objects.
Glenn Lewis

pprg.eece.unm.edu [129.24.24.10]: /pub/khoros - *Khoros image processing
package (huge, but great)*.
Danielle Argiro

expo.lcs.mit.edu [18.30.0.212]: contrib - *PBMPLUS portable bitmap package*,
*poskbitmaptars bitmap collection*, *Raveling Img*, xloadimage. Jef
Poskanzer

venera.isi.edu [128.9.0.32]: */pub/Img.tar.z and img.tar.z - some image
manipulation*, /pub/images - RGB separation photos.
Paul Raveling

ucsd.edu [128.54.16.1]: /graphics - utah rle toolkit, pbmplus, fbm,
databases, MTV, DBW and other ray tracers, world map, other stuff.
Not updated much recently.

castlab.engr.wisc.edu [128.104.52.10]: /pub/x3d.2.2.tar.Z - *X3D*
/pub/xdart.1.1.* - *XDART*
Mark Spychalla

sgi.com [192.48.153.1]: /graphics/tiff - TIFF 6.0 spec & *LIBTIFF* software
and pics. Also much SGI- and GL-related stuff (e.g. OpenGL manuals)
Sam Leffler
[supercedes okeeffe.berkeley.edu for the LIBTIFF stuff]

surya.waterloo.edu [129.97.129.72]: /graphics - FBM, ray tracers

ftp.brl.mil [128.63.16.158]: /brl-cad - information on how to get the
BRL CAD package & ray tracer. /images - various test images.
A texture library has also begun here.
Lee A. Butler

cicero.cs.umass.edu [128.119.40.189]: /texture_temp - 512x512 grayscale
Brodatz textures,
from Julien Flack .

karazm.math.uh.edu [129.7.7.6]: pub/Graphics/rtabs.shar.12.90.Z - *Wilson's
RT abstracts*, VM_pRAY.
J. Eric Townsend

ftp.pitt.edu [130.49.253.1]: /users/qralston/images - 24 bit image archive
(small). James Ralston Crawford

ftp.tc.cornell.edu [128.84.201.1]: /pub/vis - *VREND*

sunee.waterloo.edu [129.97.128.196]: /pub/raytracers - vivid, *REND386*
[or sunee.uwaterloo.ca]

archive.umich.edu [141.211.164.153]: /msdos/graphics - PC graphics stuff.
/msdos/graphics/raytrace - VIVID2.

apple.apple.com [130.43.2.2?]: /pub/ArchiveVol2/prt.

research.att.com [192.20.225.2]: /netlib/graphics - *SPD package*, ~/polyhedra -
*polyhedra databases*. (If you don't have FTP, use the netlib
automatic mail replier: UUCP - research!netlib, Internet -
net[email protected]. Send one line message "send index" for more info,
"send haines from graphics" to get the SPD)


siggraph.org [128.248.245.250]: SIGGRAPH archive site. Automatic mailer is
[email protected] ("send index").

ftp.cs.unc.edu [128.109.136.159]: pub/reaction_diffusion - Greg Turk's work on
reaction-diffusion textures, X windows code (SIGGRAPH '91)

avs.ncsc.org [128.109.178.23]: ~ftp/VolVis92 - Volume datasets from the
Boston Workshop on Volume Visualization '92. This site is also the
International AVS Center.
Terry Myerson

uvacs.cs.virginia.edu [128.143.8.100]: pub/suit/demo/{sparc,dec,etc} - SUIT
(Simple User Interface Toolkit). "finger [email protected]"
to get detailed instructions.

nexus.yorku.ca [130.63.9.66]: /pub/reports/Radiosity_code.tar.Z - *RAD*
/pub/reports/Radiosity_thesis.ps.Z - *RAD MSc. Thesis*
[This site will be changed to ftp.yorku.ca in the near future]

milton.u.washington.edu [128.95.136.1] - ~ftp/public/veos - VEOS Virtual
Reality and distributed applications prototyping environment
for Unix. Veos Software Support : [email protected]
Also, much other Virtual Reality stuff.

archive.cis.ohio-state.edu [128.146.8.52]: pub/siggraph92 - Code for
Siggraph '92 Course 23 (Procedural Modeling and Rendering Techniques)
Dr. David S. Ebert

lyapunov.ucsd.edu [132.239.86.10]: This machine is considered the
repository for preprints and programs for nonlinear dynamics,
signal processing, and related subjects (and fractals, of course!)
Matt Kennel

cod.nosc.mil [128.49.16.5]: /pub/grid.{ps,tex,ascii} - a short survey of
methods to interpolate and contour bivariate data

sugrfx.acs.syr.edu [128.230.24.1] and
ics.uci.edu [128.195.1.1]: /honig --- Various stereo-pair images

taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil [131.120.1.13]: pub/dabro/cyberware_demo.tar.Z - Human
head data

pioneer.unm.edu [129.24.9.217]: pub/texture_maps - Hans du Buf's grayscale
test textures (aerial swatches, Brodatz textures, synthetic swatches).
Space & planetary image repository. Provides access to >150 CD-ROMS
with data/images (3 on-line at a time). Colby Kraybill
.

pit-manager.mit.edu [18.172.1.27]: /pub/usenet/news.answers - the land of
FAQs. graphics and pictures directories of particular interest.
[Also available from [email protected] by sending a mail
message containing: help]

UUCP archive: avatar - RT News back issues. For details, write Kory Hamzeh



EUROPE:
-------

nic.funet.fi [128.214.6.100]: *pub/sci/papers - *Paper bank project,
including Pete Shirley's entire thesis (with pics)*, *Wilson's RT
abstracts*, pub/misc/CIA_WorldMap - CIA world data bank,
comp.graphics.research archive, *India*, and much, much more.
Juhana Kouhia

dasun2.epfl.ch [128.178.62.2]: Radiance. Good for European sites, but
doesn't carry the add-ons that are available for Radiance.

isy.liu.se [130.236.1.3]: pub/sipp/sipp-3.0.tar.Z - *SIPP* scan line z-buffer
and Phong shading renderer. Jonas Yngvesson

irisa.fr [131.254.2.3]: */iPSC2/VM_pRAY ray tracer*, SPD, /NFF - many non-SPD
NFF format scenes, RayShade data files. Didier Badouel
[may have disappeared]

phoenix.oulu.fi [130.231.240.17]: *FLI RayTracker animation files (PC VGA) -
also big .FLIs (640*480)* *RayScene demos* [Americans: check wuarchive
first]. More animations to come. Jari Kahkonen


jyu.fi [128.214.7.5]: /pub/graphics/ray-traces - many ray tracers, including
VM_pRAY, DBW, DKB, MTV, QRT, RayShade, some RT News, NFF files. Jari
Toivanen

garbo.uwasa.fi [128.214.87.1]: Much PC stuff, etc., /pc/source/contour.f -
FORTRAN program to contour scattered data using linear triangle-based
interpolation

asterix.inescn.pt [192.35.246.17]: pub/RTrace - *RTrace* nffutils.tar.Z (NFF
utilities for RTrace), medical data (CAT, etc.) converters to NFF,
Autocad to NFF Autolisp code, AUTOCAD 11 to SCN (RTrace's language)
converter and other goodies. Antonio Costa ([email protected])

vega.hut.fi [128.214.3.82]: /graphics - RTN archive, ray tracers (MTV, QRT,
others), NFF, some models.

sun4nl.nluug.nl [192.16.202.2]: /pub/graphics/raytrace - DBW.microray, MTV, etc

maeglin.mt.luth.se [130.240.0.25]: graphics/raytracing - prt, others, ~/Doc -
*Wilson's RT abstracts*, Vivid.

ftp.fu-berlin.de [130.20.225.2]: /pub/unix/graphics/rayshade4.0/inputs -
aq.tar.Z is RayShade aquarium [Americans: check princeton.edu first).
Heiko Schlichting

maggia.ethz.ch [129.132.17.1]: pub/inetray - *Inetray* and Sun RPC 4.0 code
Andreas Thurnherr

osgiliath.id.dth.dk [129.142.65.24]: /pub/amiga/graphics/Radiance - *Amiga
port of Radiance 2.0*. Per Bojsen

ftp.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de [134.106.1.9] : *PoV raytracer*

ftp.uni-kl.de [131.246.9.95]: /pub/amiga/raytracing/imagine - mirror of
the hubcap Imagine files.


neptune.inf.ethz.ch [129.132.101.33]: XYZ - *XYZ GeoBench*
Peter Schorn


AUSTRALIA:
----------

gondwana.ecr.mu.oz.au [128.250.70.62]: pub - *VORT(ART) ray tracer*, *VOGLE*,
Wilson's ray tracing abstracts, /pub/contrib/artscenes (ART scenes from
Italy), pub/images/haines - Haines thesis images, Graphics Gems code,
SPD, NFF & OFF databases, NFF and OFF previewers, plus some 8- and
24bit images and lots of other stuff. pub/rad.tar.Z - *SGI_RAD*
Bernie Kirby

munnari.oz.au [128.250.1.21]: pub/graphics/vort.tar.Z - *VORT (ART) 2.1 CSG and
algebraic surface ray tracer*, *VOGLE*, /pub - DBW, pbmplus. /graphics
- room.tar.Z (ART scenes from Italy).
David Hook

marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au [134.7.1.1]: pub/graphics/bibliography/Facial_Animation,
pub/graphics/bibliography/Morph, pub/graphics/bibliography/UI -
stuff about Facial animation, Morphing and User Interfaces.
pub/fascia - Fred Parke's fascia program.
Valerie Hall


OCEANIA - ASIA:
---------------

ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz [130.216.1.5]: ftp/mac/architec - *VISION-3D facet
based modeller, can output RayShade files*. Many other neat things
for Macs. Paul Bourke

scslwide.sony.co.jp [133.138.199.1]: ftp2/SGI/Facial-Animation - Steve Franks
site for facial animation.
Steve Franks

====== END