Pike is a uni-directional path tracer leveraging WebGPU compute shaders. I made this to explore photo-realistic rendering in web browsers. It also serves as a test-bed for me to play around with research and new browser features.
Very-loosely based on (like 99% re-written) on a previous project of mine: github.com/apbodnar/FSPT
- Hand-rolled GLTF loader
- A possibly correct microfacet BRDF implementation
- A novel(?) solution to importance sampling image based lights
- Okay performance
- A questionable SBVH implementation
- A very simple JSON scene format
- Remove image buffer jank once R/W storage images are supported in WebGPU (why is this not a thing???)
- Implement "Compressed Wide BVH" paper
- Don't use an embarassing amount of texture memory
- Experiment with shared memory based job queues to reduce thread divergence
- Importance sample-able 3D area lights (right now it's brute force MC)
- A multi-tiered BVH to facilitate GUI based scene editing
- GLTF skinning
- Explore low-discrepancy generators for quasi-RNG
WebGPU is very new, and at time of writing, isn't supported on Chrome for Linux I've only tested this on a M2 MacBook and Windows + Chrome + Nvidia.
A simple demo can be played with here: Pike Demo
Move around with the W,A,S,D,R, and F keys.
