Open Access 2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Precision Improvements for Ray/Sphere Intersection
Authors : Eric Haines, Johannes Günther, Tomas Akenine-Möller
Published in: Ray Tracing Gems
Publisher: Apress
The traditional quadratic formula is often presented as the way to compute the intersection of a ray with a sphere. While mathematically correct, this factorization can be numerically unstable when using floating-point arithmetic. We give two little-known reformulations and show how each can improve precision.