.. _rendering.tachyon_renderer:

Tachyon renderer |ovito-pro|
============================

.. image:: /images/rendering/tachyon_renderer_panel.*
  :width: 30%
  :align: right

This is a software-based ray-tracing renderer. It can produce renderings of the scene with
ambient occlusion lighting, shadows and depth of field. The visual quality of the Tachyon renderer
is slightly better than the one provided by the :ref:`OSPRay renderer <rendering.ospray_renderer>`,
but it requires more memory. Both rendering engines offer higher visual quality than the :ref:`OpenGL renderer <rendering.opengl_renderer>`,
but are typically considerably slower.

Parameters
""""""""""

Anti-aliasing samples
  To reduce `aliasing effects <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing>`__, 
  the Tachyon ray-tracer can perform *supersampling* by
  computing multiple rays per output pixel. This parameter controls the number of rays.

Direct light
  Enables the parallel light source, which is directed from an angle behind the camera.

Shadows
  Enables cast shadows for the directional light. Not that, with the current Tachyon version, you cannot turn off
  shadows when ambient occlusion shading is enabled. In this case, you can only turn off the directional light source completely.

Ambient occlusion
  Enabling this lighting technique mimics some of the effects that occur under conditions of omnidirectional diffuse illumination,
  e.g. outdoors on an overcast day.
  
Sample count
  Ambient occlusion is implemented using a Monte Carlo technique. This parameters controls the number of samples to compute.
  A higher sample number leads to a more even shading, but requires more computation time.

Depth of field
  This option enables `depth-of-field <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field>`__ (DOF) rendering, which
  blurs objects that are not in the focus of the camera. Note that depth-of-field rendering only works for viewports with a perspective projection!
  Furthermore, anti-aliasing must be enabled for DOF to work and the number of anti-aliasing samples affects the quality of the blurring.

Focal length
  This parameter sets the focus distance of the camera. Only objects at this distance from the camera will appear sharp when depth-of-field rendering is active.
  Objects closer to or further from the camera will appear blurred. If you want a specific object to be in the focus, use the :guilabel:`Pick in viewport` button
  and click on that object in the viewport to be rendered. The focal length parameter will be automatically adjusted so that the picked location is in focus.

Aperture
  The aperture of the camera. This parameter controls the strength of the depth-of-field effect, i.e., how much objects are blurred that are out of focus.

.. seealso::

  :py:class:`~ovito.vis.TachyonRenderer` (Python API)
