A technic in 3D rendering where lines of light are calculated, and their intersection points with surfaces are recorded. So, if a green light was next to a wall, the wall would be green where the light rays intersect it, brightest near the light, and fading out into the distances away from the light. Some raytracing effects are able to calculate more than one intersection because the light reflection off of a surface is further calculated. This will create effects such as having an unlit room with a window being light all over. This is currently too complex to render in real time for any, non-super computer/professional workstation.

Raytrace is designed to be a completely platform independant Raytracer which includes a Gui interface. Designed and written in Sun Microsystem's Java language.