PROJECT UPDATE

Scratchapixel Book Project

Work on the Scratchapixel book is progressing well. Our goal is to share the first results before the end of 2026.

Curious about the project, what's planned, and how it's progressing?

→ Read the latest project update

Learn more about the book project.

The Foundations of 3D Rendering
These lessons are structured to introduce 3D rendering concepts in a beginner-friendly order. Unlike most resources, we start with hands-on results before diving into theory.
3D Computer Graphics Primer: Ray-Tracing as an Example
What Do I Need to Get Started?
Your Starting Point!
Rendering an Image of a 3D Scene
Computing the Pixel Coordinates of a 3D Point
The Pinhole Camera Model
Rasterization
The Perspective and Orthographic Projection Matrix
Overview of the Ray-Tracing Rendering Technique
Generating Camera Rays with Ray-Tracing
A Minimal Ray-Tracer
Ray-Tracing: Rendering a Triangle
Introduction to Polygon Meshes
Ray-Tracing a Polygon Mesh
Transforming Objects using Matrices
Introduction to Shading
Introduction to Shaders and BRDFs
A Creative Dive into BRDF, Linearity, and Exposure
Introduction to Lighting
Introduction to Texturing
Introduction to Acceleration Structures
Volume Rendering
Mathematics for Computer Graphics
This section is dedicated to explaining the mathematical theories and tools used in creating images and simulations with a computer. It's not intended as a starting point, but rather as a reference to be consulted when these topics are mentioned in lessons from other sections.
Geometry
Matrix Inverse: Gauss-Jordan Method
Interpolation
Placing a Camera: the LookAt Function
The Mathematics of Shading
Mathematical Foundations of Monte Carlo Methods
Monte Carlo Methods in Practice
An Introduction to Fourier Transform
Computer Graphics Gems
A collection of lessons on specific topics that don’t necessarily fit into any broad category but are nonetheless interesting and cool.
Blackbody
Geometry
Methods to define shapes in computer graphics.
Bézier Curves and Surfaces
Digital Imaging
Saving and reading images to and from disk, image file formats, color spaces, color management, and basic image processing.
Introduction to Light, Color and Color Space
Digital Images: from File to Screen
Simple Image Manipulations
Procedural Generation of Virtual Worlds
Pocedural simulation of natural phenomena.
Value Noise and Procedural Patterns
Perlin Noise
Simulating the Colors of the Sky
Tooling
Various techniques useful for developing 3D tools and interacting with 3D content in general.
Windowing
The OBJ File Format
Camera Navigation Controls