
README for Tachyon(tm) Parallel/Multiprocessor Ray Tracing Software
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Author: John E. Stone - johns@megapixel.com (preferred email address) 
                        j.stone@acm.org     (preferred email address)
                        johns@ks.uiuc.edu   (work email address)

What is Tachyon??
-----------------
  The ray tracing code contained in this distribution is the result of my 
  curiosities in computer graphics.  Some of it was done as part of my M.S. 
  degree in Computer Science, other parts of it were done purely for their 
  entertainment value.  In this collection of software, you will find:  

  A) A portable, high performance parallel ray tracing system supporting 
     MPI and multithreaded implementations.  The raytracer is built as a 
     C callable library, which can be used with the included demo programs 
     or within your own software.  The distribution also includes a simple 
     front end 3-D file parser which reads a few different formats.

     Tachyon implements all of your basic geometric primitives such as
     triangles, planes, spheres, cylinders, etc.  It doesn't implement
     any fancy geometric primitives really, just the basics.  One of the
     goals in developing Tachyon was to make it fast and for it to 
     parallelize well, so these are what set it apart from more 
     full-featured programs like POV-Ray or Rayshade.  Tachyon supports
     enough features to be an excellent alternative to slower programs
     for demanding animation and scientific visualization tasks in many
     cases.  As time goes on, Tachyon will indeed incorporate more 
     features, but this will be done so as to maintain its current
     level of performance.

  B) Example scenes for use with the ray tracer and previewer.
     Note: some scenes require texture maps and/or volume data sets
           which are distributed seperately due to their large size.

How do I compile and run Tachyon?
---------------------------------
  The build process is quite simple.  On Unix, just cd into the 
  unix directory and type "make", you'll see a long list of configurations
  that can be built.  This will work fine for almost all Unix systems.
  If you wish to customize your build to enable optional features,
  you'll need to edit Make-config.  These are discussed in more
  detail in the README file included in the unix directory. 

  On Windows, the process is as simple as loading up the project files
  in the msvc subdirectory and building them.

  All of the documentation, research papers, and seperately distributed
  components related to this project can be retrieved from:
    WWW: http://jedi.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/raytracer/
 
  In addition to the existing documentation, feel free to send me email
  with questions on how things work, or for help getting things compiled
  on platforms that aren't built into the makefiles that come with the
  distribution.

How can I contribute to further development?
--------------------------------------------
  I continue to work on this software in my free time.  I depend
  on other individuals or institutions to provide me access to 
  the various kinds of parallel computers Tachyon supports in 
  order to continue maintaining it on those platforms.  If you
  would like to see the software ported to a new parallel platform,
  send me a note, and I'll work with you on it.
  I would be happy to collaborate with others on extending 
  Tachyon for a wide variety of uses.   

Copyrights etc.
---------------
  All work included in this distribution is copyrighted by John E. Stone,
  except where noted within specific source files.  You may use this code
  for any purpose you wish, as long as credit is given to its source(s). 

Last updated December 12, 2001

   John E. Stone
   johns@megapixel.com
   j.stone@acm.org
   johns@ks.uiuc.edu

