OptiX
Nvidia ray tracing API using CUDA to compute on GPUs / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about OptiX?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Nvidia OptiX (OptiX Application Acceleration Engine) is a ray tracing API that was first developed around 2009.[1] The computations are offloaded to the GPUs through either the low-level or the high-level API introduced with CUDA. CUDA is only available for Nvidia's graphics products. Nvidia OptiX is part of Nvidia GameWorks. OptiX is a high-level, or "to-the-algorithm" API, meaning that it is designed to encapsulate the entire algorithm of which ray tracing is a part, not just the ray tracing itself. This is meant to allow the OptiX engine to execute the larger algorithm with great flexibility without application-side changes.
Developer(s) | Nvidia |
---|---|
Stable release | 8.0
/ August 2023 (2023-08) |
Written in | C / C++ |
Operating system | Linux, OS X, Windows 7 and later |
Type | Ray tracing |
License | Proprietary software, free for commercial use |
Website | Nvidia OptiX developer site |
Commonly, video games use rasterization rather than ray tracing for their rendering.
According to Nvidia, OptiX is designed to be flexible enough for "procedural definitions and hybrid rendering approaches". Aside from computer graphics rendering, OptiX also helps in optical and acoustical design, radiation and electromagnetic research,[2] artificial intelligence queries and collision analysis.[3]