Ray-Casting Principle All atoms Ball & Stick Trace Coarse Grained Model Spring Network Model

ion coordination visualization GPU Ray-Casting method performances (using different Nvidia graphic cards on static and dynamic datasets) GPU Ray-Casting Principle Let us consider the example of rendering a sphere (see Figure on the left). In this approach, it is first necessary to represent a simple triangulated envelope such as a cube using OpenGL. This envelope defines a set of pixels on the screen. For each pixel on the screen, we cast a ray using the pixel as origin. Within the envelope, we define a surface equation (sphere) and calculate the potential intersections between the rays and this surface. If the ray intersects the sphere, the original pixel is kept, otherwise the pixel is discarded. Then, using the equation of the sphere, it is possible to define the surface lighting. The interest of this method is that, except for the initial creation of the cubes, the entire process is calculated on the GPU. There are several advantages: 1- Creation of a smooth surface with few triangles. 2- Pixel-accurate surface for all levels of zoom