Developers

Real-time, interactive ray tracing

Caustic Professional is reinventing rendering with products that enable developers to add real-time, interactive ray tracing to a wide range of 3D graphics and physics applications. We have developed unique and patented hardware and software technologies that radically lower the cost and dramatically increase the efficiency and performance of ray tracing. This opens up the potential for highly photorealistic computer generated animated imagery to a host of new real-time applications and markets not possible previously.

No more "Bare-Metal" programming or "Vendor Lock-In"

Along with these unprecedented performance gains, the old practice of programming ray tracing to the “bare-metal” has been finally put to rest. Like OpenGL™ for rasterization, Imagination’s OpenRL™ ray tracing APIs are completely device independent, supported on a growing range of CPUs, GPUs, and RTUs (ray tracing units). These devices come from the leading computer graphics vendors, and therefore you no longer need to program to proprietary closed standards that are limited to a specific subset of hardware. And with Caustic Professional’s Brazil 3.0 APIs, we can provide a total rendering solution too.

Your path to mainstream graphics markets

When you create your solutions using OpenRL or Brazil, you have an unprecedented opportunity to expand beyond professional 3D by bringing your application's content and tools to more mainstream graphics markets. When you partner with Caustic, you're also partnering with Imagination Technologies — a global leader in multimedia and communication technologies. We are the company that created the PowerVR™ Graphics GPUs, which are the market leader in graphics for mobile, consumer and automotive markets. In the future, you're going to see our ray tracing technology expand beyond the professional graphics markets being pioneered by Caustic Professional into Imagination's mainstream graphics markets.

APIs and Renderers

Imagination's OpenRL 1.0 SDK implements the world's first specification for writing ray tracing applications that have standardized access to a wide range of graphics hardware devices. It is a cross-OS, cross-platform API that provides a flexible foundation upon which many different applications can be built.

Today there is no open standard, cross-platform API for ray tracing. Consequently developers must program their ray tracing applications "to the metal" or accept "vendor lock-in" by using a proprietary closed standard that is limited to a specific subset of hardware. OpenRL addresses that market need by delivering an open, royalty free API standard that works for everyone. And since it's backed by Imagination, a leading member of the Khronos group, we're committed to making OpenRL the most widely adopted cross-platform open ray tracing API standard.

Note: OpenRL is not a trademark of the Khronos Group. It is a trademark of Imagination Technologies Ltd. .

Caustic Professional's Brazil 3.0 SDK is a powerful new rendering engine built on OpenRL to address the next generation of high quality fully interactive ray traced rendering across a broad range of markets, from CAD and industrial design through to gaming and cinematic quality content creation. Brazil 3.0 embraces the features and capabilities of a world class renderer, but introduces fully dynamic geometry support enabling full rendering and manipulation of ray traced rendered objects on the fly. Brazil 3.0 leverages Caustic's OpenRL™ for acceleration and standardized access to a wide range of execution platforms, ensuring that users will be able to take full advantage of future OpenRL platforms.

Join the Caustic Professional Developer Program and get all the tools and information to add real-time, interactive ray tracing to your application.