ray tracing

noun

variants or less commonly ray-tracing

ˈrā-ˌtrā-siŋ 

or raytracing

computers

: a process of creating digital images that include a simulation of real-world illumination by calculating the paths that individual beams of light would travel to a viewer's eye in a depicted scene

So, what even is ray tracing? Well, it's an advanced and lifelike way of rendering light and shadows in a scene. … However, because ray tracing works by simulating and tracking every ray of light produced by a source of lighting, it kind of takes a lot of horsepower …

—Jackie Thomas

Both companies eventually boasted that high-end graphical features such as ray-tracing would happen on smartphones.

—C. Scott Brown

While traditional lighting (AKA rasterization) in games works by essentially using clever trickery to approximate believable lighting, raytracing behaves much more like real light, simulating the actual path light rays would take from their source to your eyes.

—Napier Lopez

ray-tracing capabilities

a GPU with improved ray tracing performance

Examples of ray tracing in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

All of Sony’s changes point to a PS5 Pro that will be far more capable of rendering games with ray tracing enabled or hitting higher resolutions and frame rates in certain titles. —Tom Warren, The Verge, 15 Apr. 2024

The key to Chaos’ new development is the use of a type of rendering known as ray tracing (the new development combines the use of Chao’s V-Ray ray tracing tool with additional new tech). —Carolyn Giardina, Variety, 4 Apr. 2024

Reports from over the summer suggest developers have been shown demos of the upcoming hardware supporting modern graphical effects like ray tracing and DLSS. —Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 26 Jan. 2024

The other new features—ray tracing and mesh shading—are put to use in graphics-intensive games and apps. —Brenda Stolyar, WIRED, 31 Oct. 2023

Qualcomm talked up the lighting capabilities of the chip for video games, with support for Unreal Engine 5 Lumen and better ray tracing. —Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica, 24 Oct. 2023

The demo reportedly used Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling technology with ray tracing enabled, suggesting the chip inside the next Switch could be capable of delivering the latest AAA games. —Tom Warren, The Verge, 18 Sep. 2023

Having another excuse to play it is reason enough for hype, but the PC version also adds new graphical features, such as an unlocked frame rate, DLSS, ray tracing, and ultra-wide resolutions. —Jordan Minor, PCMAG, 25 July 2023

Back in 2021, PC emulation allowed Breath of the Wild to run at 8K with ray tracing. —Matthew Humphries, PCMAG, 2 May 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1971, in the meaning defined above