Ray tracing technology has been studied for many years, but because the hardware and software requirements are extremely demanding, it is expected that there will be no real-time rendering possibility in the future. However, the entire industry is working hard, especially in 2018.
Microsoft is introducing the DXR API interface in DX12, NVIDIA, AMD, Futuremark, EA, Epic, Unity, etc. are also working hard in their own way.
Among them, NVIDIA developed the GameWorks RTX technology and is currently working with the Khronos Group standards organization to introduce it into the Vulkan API, and achieved phased results.
In a recent technical document, NVIDIA mentioned a new Vulkan API extension 'VK_NV_raytracing', which is undoubtedly used to support ray tracing.
From the description of the document, it supports many features of NVIDIA RTX, and the code style is also similar to DXR, so it is very convenient for porting and cross-platform is more convenient.
Ray tracing Vulkan API structure
Traditional raster rendering and ray tracing rendering process
