This is a lightweight, functional implementation of the Vulkan ray tracing pipeline, written in C. It features an interactive, resizable window using GLFW, and a simple GUI integration using ImGui.
By default, this program loads and ray-traces this 870k-triangle Stanford Dragon.
The normal vector is returned as the color. This can easily be expanded upon to ray trace light, reflections, etc.
The controls are shown in Usage. The GUI reports FPS and frametime, and can be used to toggle VSync.
This project is not limited to any GPU or OS. However, your GPU must meet the following requirements:
-
Must support the following extensions (see Extension Support):
VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline,
VK_KHR_acceleration_structure,
VK_KHR_swapchain,
VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations,
VK_KHR_buffer_device_address -
Must support Vulkan API version 1.4. Any GPU supporting those extensions should support Vulkan API version 1.4.
-
Must have a driver capable of Vulkan ray tracing support. If you encounter issues using a supported GPU, update your driver.
- Download and run the Vulkan SDK installer.
- Install a C/C++ compiler. See C/C++ Compiler.
- Install the Meson build system.
- Install the Vulkan SDK according to your distribution.
- Install a C/C++ compiler. See C/C++ Compiler.
- Install the Meson build system.
- See Compiling GLFW and install the packages for your distribution. GLFW itself will be compiled automatically during the build process.
This project also depends on glfw3, cglm, cgltf, and imgui. These are automatically included in the build process, you do not need to install any of these.
After the dependencies are installed, run the following:
git clone https://github.com/tylertms/vkrt
cd vkrt
meson setup build
meson compile -C build
./build/vkrt
To rebuild the program after changes are made to any source file, including shaders, run the following:
meson compile -C build
./build/vkrt
- Hold left-click and drag to orbit the camera.
- Hold right-click and drag to pan the camera.
- Use the scroll wheel to zoom.
Extension support can be viewed on Vulkan GPU Info. In general, for this project, this includes NVIDIA GTX 10-series, AMD RX 6000-series, and the Intel Arc A-series and later. Many non- desktop GPUs from a similar timeframe are also supported, such as integrated and workstation GPUs.
On Windows, you can run the Visual Studio installer and check the C/C++ development box to install the compiler. Alternatively, you can use MSYS2 to install MinGW or GCC. This is more involved than Visual Studio but is more lightweight.
If your Linux distribution does not include a C/C++ compiler, you can install one using the following:
- Ubuntu, Debian, and derivatives:
sudo apt install build-essential - Fedora, Centos, RHEL and derivatives:
sudo dnf install gcc-c++ - Arch and derivatives:
sudo pacman -S gcc