Light Tracer Render

The experience is much better with a discrete (dedicated) graphics card. If you have a dual-GPU laptop, take advantage of running the browser on a dedicated GPU, not the integrated one. We recommend at least GeForce GTX 670 / GeForce GTX 1050 / AMD Radeon RX 560 / Apple M1 to work with Light Tracer Render comfortably.

The web version of Light Tracer Render runs on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and the latest Safari. Note that Safari has only recently got all the necessary features to run Light Tracer, so its support is still experimental. Other platforms are not officially supported, however, Chromium-based browsers should work fine.

Check the status of WebGL 2

The ray-tracing core requires WebGL 2, so please ensure that it is available. You can visit webgl-report for details (check Unmasked Renderer to find out which graphics card is used for rendering).

Use discrete GPU on a dual-GPU laptop

If your laptop has several GPUs (e.g. integrated GPU from Intel/AMD for output and dedicated from NVIDIA/AMD for games), please ensure that the web browser uses a more powerful one (it should be in the Unmasked Renderer). Automatic selection of a dedicated GPU cannot be performed at the application level, so you have to do it yourself:

1. macOS: Check the Apple support page Set graphics performance on MacBook Pro.
2. Windows (NVIDIA/AMD): set a dedicated graphics card for chrome.exe in the NVIDIA/AMD control panel.

Download/install latest graphics drivers

It is important to keep your graphics drivers up-to-date, because web browsers may not enable WebGL 2 for old GPU driver versions.

Use native OpenGL as graphics backend

Also, since Light Tracer Render is implemented with WebGL 2, it may be reasonable to switch the underlying 3D API to OpenGL. That may improve the performance and makes the shader compiling much faster (as well as renderer initialization time).

In the case of Google Chrome, you can find Chrome flags by just typing "chrome://flags" or "about://flags" in the Omnibox (address/search bar). Once "Chrome flags" is opened, you will see a list of features that you can enable or disable. You need "Choose ANGLE graphics backend" setting that should be set to OpenGL. After changing it, click on “Relaunch” button that will save your changes and restart Chrome.

For using OpenGL in Firefox you need to change the runtime option. Type "about:config" into the address bar. In recent versions of Firefox, find "webgl.disable-angle" variable. By default, it is set to "false": native OpenGL is not used. Set it to "true" to start using OpenGL (browser restart is not needed).

Our 3D rendering software is based on a verified unbiased rendering engine. Rendering correctness is verified by comparison with comprehensive physically-based renderers such as PBRT (https://www.pbrt.org/) and Mitsuba (https://www.mitsuba-renderer.org/). The materials are physically correct and based on the Disney Principled model also known as the "PBR" shader, making it compatible with other software such as Pixar’s Renderman®, Unreal Engine®, or Blender. The default settings are adjusted so that the output renders are slightly biased but keep visually plausible results with minimal render times.

Given the strict requirements for working in a web browser, the Light Tracer's GPU render engine represents color with RGB values. Nevertheless, it supports spectral effects such as dispersion on refractive objects.

At the same time, spectral rendering is most apparent when used with measured spectral data for both light sources and materials. However, in an artist-driven scene, the light source spectra, are more usually reconstructed from RGB sliders in some way, leading to very smooth spectra, where the visual differences between RGB and spectral rendering are barely noticeable. Moreover, spectral rendering is computationally more expensive and generates more noise. For these reasons, Light Tracer is built on the RGB ray tracing engine.

The rendering process runs entirely on the GPU. The CPU is used only for the preparation of input data (in particular, accelerating structures are built and updated on a CPU). Unlike many other GPU renderers, Light Tracer Render is built on its technology stack using only cross-platform GPU programming interfaces (it does not use NVIDIA CUDA, OptiX, or AMD Radeon Rays). As a result, our rendering software supports different GPUs and operating systems.

Light Tracer can run on almost any GPU produced after 2012–2013. In particular, it works fine on NVIDIA GeForce 600 series or higher and AMD Radeon RX 200 series or higher. Also, Light Tracer runs on integrated GPUs, such as Intel HD Graphics 4000 series or higher, Intel Iris Graphics, AMD Radeon Graphics, and Apple M1.

Rendering speed depends entirely on your GPU. For comfortable experience and fast rendering times, we recommend at least GeForce GTX 670 / GeForce GTX 1050 / AMD Radeon RX 560 / Apple M1. If you have a powerful GPU, don't forget to turn off V-Sync, which can limit rendering speed by the monitor refresh rate.

Although our rendering software targets a wide range of graphics cards, it can utilize unique features of modern NVIDIA GPUs to run GPU-accelerated AI denoising. On other systems, you may use a CPU-based Intel AI denoiser, which requires a CPU with SSE 4.2 support.

The standalone (native) version of Light Tracer Render is available for both Windows 10 (64-bit) and macOS Catalina or newer (10.15+). As for the web version, it works on any OS (including Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and macOS) from compatible web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari, etc.). Note that Safari has only recently got all the necessary features to run Light Tracer, so its support is still experimental.

The Light Tracer project arose from the challenging idea of creating a full-featured physically-based renderer that could run even in a web browser.

Today, you can run Light Tracer even on modern phones (both Android and iOS), and with the latest generations of SOCs, you may expect acceptable performance. However, the user experience on such small-screen devices is not good, and they probably need a different UI. We plan to develop this area and improve support for mobile devices.

At the same time, on tablets like the iPad Pro (M1 chip) and Galaxy Tab S8 (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1), Light Tracer can be used quite smoothly, and the screen size is enough for comfortable interaction with the controls. So if you have a powerful tablet, you can try using the web version right now. Version 2.3.2 has got significant improvements for touch screens and touchpads support, so there is no need to connect external control devices.

Light Tracer's rendering performance is on par with the high-performance 3D rendering software available today. However, the rendering performance is not the only goal.

We focus on optimizing the amount of effort you need to set up the 3D scene from start to finish and get the final result. The actual rendering is only a fraction of the total time spent. A simple and intuitive workflow is our primary goal which we pursue in developing our rendering software.

Our 3D rendering software is designed to meet the needs of engineers, designers, and architects. Light Tracer can be used for product design, interior design, advertising, jewelry design, online configurators and 3D viewers, architectural visualization, industrial design, and the game industry. Whatever the kind of project, in just a few steps you can apply textured material presets or create your own, set up studio lighting, add stunning effects and use post-processing tools to create high-end visuals.

Yes, but you need to be online only to start Light Tracer Render. Our rendering software uses the Internet to establish a connection with our server in order to verify your license. After launching, Light Tracer can work even in offline mode. Therefore, it is suitable even for users who have unstable internet connection.

We deliver fully automated online sales with no human intervention with the help of PayPro Global, our reliable e-commerce partner with exceptional support. Our 3D rendering software is activated in a few minutes after acquiring the license. After that, you can log in to the Light Tracer app with the e-mail you have used to buy the license.

Yes. You may install Light Tracer Render on several computers (e.g., your workstation and laptop) and use it anytime, anywhere. However, you can’t run the rendering software simultaneously on multiple computers (you need to acquire an additional license for this purpose).

The subscription can be canceled anytime at no additional cost. Note, even if you cancel the plan, you will be able to use our 3D rendering software until the end of your billing period. Past that time, your subscription will be terminated, and there will be no more fees. You may subscribe again at any time.

Perpetual license can not be canceled. Payment for it is charged once upon purchase, after which you may use the rendering software for an unlimited time.

Light Engine possesses unique expertise to develop intelligent and interactive 3D product visualization software powered by proprietary visualization technology. Light Tracer's rendering engine is a reusable software component with its JavaScript/C++ API and is available for integration into both native and web applications. For further assistance and licensing details, please contact info@lighttracer.org.