Kindle Unlimited
Unlimited reading. Over 4 million titles. Learn more
Read for Free
OR
Kindle Price: $2.99

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.

Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Peter Shirley
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Ray Tracing in One Weekend (Ray Tracing Minibooks Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Peter Shirley (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 316 ratings
Customers reported quality issues in this eBook. This eBook has: Typos, Poor Formatting.
The publisher has been notified to correct these issues.
Quality issues reported
See all formats and editions
This informal book takes you through most of the author's university course on ray tracing. Each mini-chapter adds one feature to the ray tracer, and by the end the reader can produce the image on the book cover. Details of basic ray tracing code architecture and C++ classes are given.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Book 1 of 3
    Ray Tracing Minibooks
  2. Print length
    49 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    January 26, 2016
  5. File size
    13638 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
Next slide of product details
Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download

Shop this series

See full series
See included books
Shop this series
There are 3 books in this series.
Bundle price: Kindle price
$9.01
By clicking the above button, you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use

This option includes 3 books.

Something went wrong.
Please try again.
Bundle price: Kindle price
$9.01
By clicking the above button, you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use

Customers also bought or read

Is this feature helpful?
Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1
Previous page
  1. Game Physics In One Weekend
    Kindle Edition
    $2.99
  4. Game Programming Patterns
    Kindle Edition
    $24.95
  6. Real-Time Rendering, Fourth Edition
    Kindle Edition
    $79.79
  12. Tour of C++, A (C++ In-Depth Series)
    Kindle Edition
    $28.49
  15. AI for Games, Third Edition
    Kindle Edition
    $39.99
  16. Fundamentals of Computer Graphics
    Kindle Edition
    $112.99
  17. Crafting Interpreters
    Kindle Edition
    $39.95
  23. C++ Templates: The Complete Guide
    Kindle Edition
    $57.99
Next page
Loading...

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01B5AODD8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ (January 26, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 26, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 13638 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 49 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 316 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Peter Shirley

Peter Shirley

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

I'm a Chicago transplant living in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have a physics degree from Reed College, but discovered computers when Professor Nicolas Wheeler forced me to do a ray tracing program in 1984. It was 2D ray tracing to do a caustic on a Vax and writing out the picture to a green Techtonix terminal. This convinced me to go to grad school in computer science at Illinois. I have been ray tracing ever since. I've done stints in various universities and companies and am currently in my own start-up company doing VR which is common but not using HMDs which is not!

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
316 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book easy to follow and fun to read. They describe it as an excellent entry-level tutorial for ray tracing, a quick intro to turning math into pictures, and a nice book with math in practice. However, some customers report bugs in the example code and multiple mistakes in the source code.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
Ease of useFun to readValue for moneyCode quality
20 customers mention "Ease of use"18 positive2 negative

Customers find the book easy to follow and an excellent entry-level tutorial for ray tracing. They say it's full of straightforward examples and is pragmatic. Readers also mention the book is right to the point and fast-paced.

"...It is very pragmatic and that approach suited me very well...." Read more

"...Short, easy to follow, not intimidating, and easily affordable if you're not sure if you want to invest in a huge book on the topic from square one...." Read more

"...and the explanation of the concepts is simple enough for non technical people to understand...." Read more

"...is not filled with blah-blah, but rather to the point, it does not seem awkward at all." Read more

6 customers mention "Fun to read"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book fun to read. They say it's short, right to the point, and satisfying.

"...Fun and exciting to generate some images again." Read more

"...Plus, you get the results pretty fast, so it is indeed satisfying." Read more

"A very fun and quick intro to turning math into pictures...." Read more

"It was a great read on the subject of ray tracing!! The examples were fun." Read more

3 customers mention "Value for money"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the value for money of the book. They mention the low price makes it accessible to anyone interested in Ray Tracing.

"...Short, easy to follow, not intimidating, and easily affordable if you're not sure if you want to invest in a huge book on the topic from square one...." Read more

"...The low price means that anyone who is interested in RayTracing should pick this book up in the blink of an eye...." Read more

"...Well worth the price, in both time and money." Read more

4 customers mention "Code quality"0 positive4 negative

Customers find the code quality of the book awful. They mention there are bugs in the example code and multiple mistakes in the source code.

"...As of the Kindle version of March 2018, there are multiple mistakes in the source code in said images..." Read more

"...But man, the code in the book was awful. The code is ancient C++ written in the infamous "C with classes" style...." Read more

"...There were a few bugs in the example code that I think have been fixed or at least I found fixes in blog comments...." Read more

"I found a few bugs in the presented code, image errors in the scatter function and an image in Kindle that didn't show up... it was only $3 so I..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Saapuu
5.0 out of 5 stars A great little book that is all about how to start making a ray tracer
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2016
Verified Purchase
A small book that is all about how to start making a ray tracer. You'll only get to render some spheres in this book (but the later books in the series will get further), but even spheres will look great when you ray trace them.

There's not much theory or anything like that found in the book, just the code and some explanation of how it works. It is very pragmatic and that approach suited me very well. I've now built my first simple ray tracer (well, maybe it is more Shirley's ray tracer than mine at this point), but now I understand mostly how it works, and can extend it with my own variations.

If you've ever thought about writing a ray tracer one day, this is a really good book to start it off in just a few days. If you have some prior knowledge of how to get a compiler running, you'll probably get it done in a weekend.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
AG
5.0 out of 5 stars The easiest possible start to try Ray-Tracing. Do it!
Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2016
Verified Purchase
I wish all computer science and computer graphics books were in this format. Short, easy to follow, not intimidating, and easily affordable if you're not sure if you want to invest in a huge book on the topic from square one. Peter has a good, clear, no-nonsense earnest tone which is refreshing. The hand-drawn diagrams are great - they are both clear and add a bit of personality and colour to topics that should be fun and colourful. I think if you've had about the equivalent of the first 2 introductory university courses in programming you'll have no problem following along.

The images and code didn't always come out at a nice size on my original b&w Kindle, but when I'm looking at code I prefer to have the Amazon cloud/web reader open for reference anyway and that was ideal.

No trees wasted.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
David Kopec
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book that Delivers on its Promise with some Polish Issues
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
As implied by the title, I was able to complete Ray Tracing in One Weekend in about 10 hours, including translating all of the source from C++ to Swift as I went. There's a reason this book is so popular: It's difficult to explain deep technical subjects like this concisely and Shirley does it well. Technical books on a subject like this tend to either be long-winded affairs in textbook format, or poorly written trade books. This book is neither long-winded nor poorly written. In that sense it's a triumph.

Programming wise, you will need nothing more than the equivalent of two college courses (intro programming, object-oriented programming) to complete this book. I would call the level of programmatic difficulty "intermediate." Math wise, you will need high school level geometry as well as some basic knowledge of vectors including especially dot products & cross products. If you have never seen geometry described using three-dimensional vectors then this book will be impossible. Most of the intended readers likely have seen that math.

So, if it's a well-written book that stays within its titular call-to-action, then what's the problem? Polish—the book lacks polish. This is the kind of problem that gives self-publishing a bad name. The source code snippets are presented in images with text so small that it is hard to read. As of the Kindle version of March 2018, there are multiple mistakes in the source code in said images (unused variables, wrong constants, actual logic errors), some of which Shirley explicitly changed in the Kindle text to point out, yet did not fix in the source code snippet images. His decision to use these convoluted source code images are explained away on his blog for expediency and in the introduction as incentive to type the code in. Yes, we should type the code in ourselves, but not at the expense of it being so small in the book that it's unreadable and hard for him to update to revise the Kindle edition.

There other polish issues too — a lack of comments in the source code, text that could've used a good copy editor, hand drawn diagrams that are not as lucid as they could be. Shirley has written a great book, but he needs to clean it up so as not to continue to give self-publishing a bad name!
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Rasmus Larsen
5.0 out of 5 stars I'm not good at deciphering a new field from pure math
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2016
Verified Purchase
I've wanted to program a RayTracer for some time now, but the all the available material had a very large focus on math. I'm not good at deciphering a new field from pure math, so this introduction into the world of RayTracing has been very welcome. The low price means that anyone who is interested in RayTracing should pick this book up in the blink of an eye. You WILL have a good-looking raytracer when you're done with this book.-
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Rushil Kekre
5.0 out of 5 stars A really great book to start with
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2017
Verified Purchase
A really great book to start with. The code works well (although it may need tweaking if you are running on visual studio) and the explanation of the concepts is simple enough for non technical people to understand. Peter Shirley's method of writing makes it very easy to read this book. Small enough to be done in a weekend and still quite full of knowledge.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Bradley Bossard
3.0 out of 5 stars It's a good book, but I've found two flaws while working ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2016
Verified Purchase
It's a good book, but I've found two flaws while working with it

1. The source doesn't seem to be available and the text of the code is embedding in images, so you can't copy and paste. While it's been informative to retype the code, sometimes I would like to avoid it.

2. In Chapter 8 on Materials, the Hitable class gets a new member, mtr_ptr, which seems to get glossed over where this is added to the code, etc. It would be nice to get an update on design, and again, a code repo with git commits for each chapter would go a long way.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Michael
5.0 out of 5 stars I love the way that it is short, precise and to the point.
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
The book has a nice flow of building up a Ray tracer from scratch. Quite a few sections I had to read a few times to get my head around it, but because the book is not filled with blah-blah, but rather to the point, it does not seem awkward at all.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
michael kowal
5.0 out of 5 stars Great, fun project
Reviewed in Canada on October 1, 2018
Verified Purchase
Good thing to do if you’re looking for an interesting project and have a little bit of time. The book provides all the code if you’d like to do it in c++ but also provides descriptions on how to do it in any language.
Report
Adam D
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good intro to RT
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 24, 2018
Verified Purchase
This book is good because, while ray tracing is simple in principle, it showed me that getting started and actually producing results turned out to be much simpler than I thought. The book quickly shows the author's knowledge and wisdom on this subject, letting you know of file formats and conventions that get you up and running faster. And this is with just C++ with no external libraries!

Every now and then you might need to look something up because the book doesn't go into detail on everything, focusing instead on telling you what you need to know to get results. One example would be that I wanted to learn more about the dot-product operation.

If you're not interested in making your own vector class/functions, I'd recommend using the GLM ("OpenGL Mathematics") library by G-Truc Creation.

Recommended for any graphics enthusiast. Fantastic value for money!
Report
Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars It delivers.
Reviewed in Spain on January 3, 2018
Verified Purchase
Easy code, chewed up.

It works really well and it does allow to make a ray tracer in a weekend if you really put effort into it, tough I'm sure anyone putting half an hour each day would be able to.
I took a non-objects approach, opposite to the one described in the book, but still all the theory and example code was explained well enough for me to follow without any problems.
Report
Sushi
5.0 out of 5 stars Semplice ed efficace
Reviewed in Italy on March 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
Ottimo libro per iniziare a giocare un po' con l'enorme e complicatissimo mondo dei RayTracer. Espone gli argomenti in maniera estremamente semplice ed efficace, utilizzando snippet di codici facili da compredere e molto chiari da leggere (questo ovviamente risulta in codice spesso non proprio ottimale, ma è pur sempre una guida base). Credo che valga assolutamente di spendere una cifra così irrisoria per comprarlo. Forse unica pecca è l'estrema sintesi di alcuni passaggi, ma nulla che una ricerca online non possa colmare. In definitiva mi sento di dire che per chiunque voglia immergersi in questo mondo non vi è modo migliore di imparare (ed ho provato molti tutorial online, ma nessuno è semplice ed efficace come questo).
Report
C. Helmich
5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to ray tracing
Reviewed in Germany on March 31, 2018
Verified Purchase
This book gives an easy to understand and easy to implement introduction to ray tracing theory and practical implementation.
It can be read in under an hour and implementing the examples shouldn’t take that long either.
Have fun implementing your own ray tracer.
Report

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report