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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1401427
“However, the new caustics algorithm in KeyShot 10.2 renders this detail in just 10 seconds for both the distant view and the close-up view.” Blazingly fast caustics on the GPU KeyShot 9 was the first version of KeyShot that took full advantage of the GPU. The RTX technology coupled with the mature CUDA programming framework made it possible to get everything ray tracing, photon mapping, shading etc. running on the GPU. As we were developing KeyShot 10 we took a deeper look at the GPU implementation and decided to see if we could improve the photon map implementation and obtain faster caustics. This required quite a few cups of coffee (thanks Rocket espresso), but in the end we were able to not only match the CPU algorithm but also surpass it. The end result is a caustics algorithm that can handle thousands of lights, quickly render highly detailed caustics up close, and runs blazingly fast on the new NVIDIA RTX Ampere GPUs. Using the new caustics algorithm in KeyShot 10 we started getting details and fine structures in the caustics that normally would not be seen due to the time it takes to get to this detail level. Figure 5 shows a close-up of the caustics from the cognac glass in figure 1. Notice, the structure in the caustics caused by the fact that the cognac glass is made of triangles and not a continuous smooth surface. Normally, this is not seen as this level of detail would require a long rendering time. However, the new caustics algorithm in KeyShot 10.2 renders this detail in just 10 seconds for both the distant view and the close-up view.