Feasibility of pure forward ray tracing

[jantma2]

Hello,

is it already possible to perform a pur forward ray tracing (light source to camera) with Mitsuba?
I'm dealing with those ray tracers during my professional life all day and I wonder whether I could do that for hobby at home also?

In case the answer is 'yes', can Mitsuba handle multiple cameras during a single computation process?

Thanks for support.
BR

[njroussel]

Hi @jantma2

This is indeed possible. In fact, the ptracer is an existing integrator plugin that starts tracing rays from light sources.

The "main" rendering interface is designed to only accept a single Sensor. However, we have implemented a batch sensor which groups multiple sensors into a single object.
Also, it's pretty easy to deviate from the main rendering interface (mi.render), you can quickly put together a custom pipeline by using the building blocks of Mitsuba itself. Take a look at this tutorial for an example of a script that somewhat rebuilds a pipeline.