Ray-tracing

Am working a ray-tracer for a semester long course on image synthesis. The latest code can be found here. Here are some pretty pictures:

Blinn and Phong

So far, I calculated the net light energy at any point in space as the sum total of the ambient light and the diffuse component of the sphere's material.
The Phong illumination model allows for modeling of the specular term (remember the highlight we get on smooth reflecting surfaces?

A simple raytracer

I've been wanting to create a simple raytracer for a long time now, with it being a worthy foray into the study of lighting in rendering. Today is the luck day then :).