remark. ray-casting/ray-tracing/ray-marching [ag-001E]
remark. ray-casting/ray-tracing/ray-marching [ag-001E]
The ray-casting/ray-tracing/ray-marching algorithms simply apply one of the multitude of root finding methods to solve the ray intersection equation.
In general, ray-tracing typically uses a bunch of geometry (e.g. closed-form formulas) to calculate the intersection point, while ray-marching marches along the ray, and uses numerical methods to find the intersection point.
The term ray-casting was introduced concurrently with ray-tracing in the 1980s, nowadays it could be used to mean the general ray intersection process, or specifically the ray-marching process with fixed step size.