Lesson 216
Computer Graphics & Rendering
Rasterization vs Ray Tracing
1:00How a 3D scene made of triangle meshes is turned into a 2D image — covering the transform pipeline, rasterization, the z-buffer, ray tracing, Phong shading, anti-aliasing, and global illumination.
By the end, you can
- Explain why 3D scenes are represented as triangle meshes and what a vertex is.
- Trace a vertex through the five stages of the transform pipeline and state what each matrix does.
- Describe the rasterization algorithm: outer loop, bounding box, inside test, and why it parallelizes on a GPU.
- Explain how the z-buffer resolves which surface is in front at each pixel without sorting.
- Contrast rasterization and ray tracing by their outer loop, cost model, and the lighting effects each handles naturally.
- Identify the three Phong shading terms, state the formula for each, and explain what the shininess exponent controls.
- Explain what aliasing is and how supersampling and MSAA reduce it.
- Describe what global illumination adds beyond direct Phong lighting and how path tracing computes it.
- Classify a rendering task as best suited for rasterization, ray tracing, or a hybrid approach.
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