Are there simple, free, C++ ray tracing libraries out there?

Question

I have a pet project related to ray tracing. I need to generate ray traced images but the actual ray tracing is not the focus here. Thus I'd like to be able to freely use a library to do that for me.

I know of POVray but am a bit afraid of it for two reasons:

• it is quite big, there are zillions of lines of code and many, many features I don't even dream of, so I may have a hard time managing a render from code;
• it does not compile with visual studio 2010 express, which is what I use, and I hate project configuration. As Melvin Udall would put it: "I'm using the word 'hate' here, about project configuration".

I've been googling for some days now and did not find anything suitable besides POV.

The question is...

Should I get over it and use POVray, or are there simple (but not simplistic), smaller, hidden ray tracing libs freely available, as in free speech?

Answer 1

If your target platform is modern Intel CPUs, Embree is a good option: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/embree-photo-realistic-ray-tracing-kernels/