APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR RAY TRACING USING LOOKUP TABLE

A ray tracing apparatus and a ray tracing method by using a look up table are provided to perform the ray tracing without limitation of the system structure and to shorten the search time. A look up table generating unit(130) divides a scene into plural areas and plural cells with the same size. The look up table generating unit also allocates an independent address to a cell included in the same division area and generates and stores a look up table. A crossing point extracting unit(140) extracts the nearest crossing point and farthest crossing point between a bounding box of the entire of the scene and a ray of light and also extracts the local nearest crossing point and local farthest crossing point between the division area and a ray of light. An address acquiring unit(150) acquires the address of a cell corresponding to the coordinate relating to the local nearest crossing point. A triangle crossing inspection unit(160) confirms whether a triangle crossing the ray of light exists within the division area.