Pristrender

Pristrender is a rendering engine focused on simulating spectral light transport and optical dispersion in three-dimensional scenes. It emphasizes accurate prism and dispersion effects, enabling physically plausible rendering of color separation, refraction, and diffraction phenomena that arise when light interacts with transparent materials.

The system uses spectral rendering techniques, sampling light across multiple wavelengths and integrating results to produce a final color image. It supports wavelength-dependent refractive indices, dispersion shaders for prisms and colored glass, and Monte Carlo path tracing with bidirectional variants. Material definitions specify spectral reflectance, absorption, and scattering.

Origin and usage: pristrender emerged from interest in color science and optics within computer graphics communities. It is commonly distributed as open-source or research code and is used in education, demonstrations of optical phenomena, and visual effects work that requires spectral accuracy. Practical production relies on balance between fidelity and performance.

Limitations and considerations: spectral rendering is computationally demanding and requires spectral data for materials, light sources, and detectors. Realistic results depend on accurate data and sampling strategies. As a niche tool, pristrender is less integrated with mainstream pipelines than RGB renderers, but it serves specialized tasks and research.

See also: spectral rendering, path tracing, physically based rendering, dispersion.