Interactive mixed reality rendering in a distributed ray tracing framework

Photo-realistic rendering methods are required to achieve a convincing combination of real and synthetic scene parts in mixed reality applications. Ray tracing is a long time proved candidate, but when it comes to interactive frame rates GPU based rendering has usually been preferred. Recent advances in distributed interactive ray tracing suggest to explore also its potential for mixed reality rendering applications. In this paper we show how simple extensions to the OpenRT ray tracing framework enable interactive applications from different ends of the mixed reality spectrum. We point out the benefits of a ray tracer over traditional GPU approaches when it comes to flexibility and complex compositing operations.