# tunabrain/tungsten

High performance physically based renderer in C++11

Repository: https://github.com/tunabrain/tungsten
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/tungsten
Language: C++
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2022-03-10T12:45:17+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4370, "days_push": 1637, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1831, forks 173 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:41.876456+00:00)

## What it is
Tungsten is a high-performance physically based renderer written in C++11 that simulates full light transport through arbitrary geometry using unbiased integration of the rendering equation. It supports multiple light transport algorithms including bidirectional path tracing, progressive photon mapping, and metropolis light transport, and uses Intel's Embree for fast geometry intersection.

## Use cases
- render photorealistic images with physically based light transport
- compare bidirectional path tracing and photon mapping algorithms
- render scenes with global illumination and caustics
- benchmark and optimize a ray tracing renderer
- experiment with material and lighting setups using test scenes
- learn how physically based rendering algorithms are implemented

## When to choose
- you need unbiased, physically accurate rendering with multiple light transport algorithms
- you want a fast CPU renderer leveraging multicore systems and Embree
- you are studying or researching rendering algorithms and want readable C++ source
- you need a free permissively licensed renderer (zlib) you can modify freely

## When to avoid
- you need GPU-accelerated real-time rendering
- you require extensive documentation or an active development roadmap
- you want a production pipeline tool with broad format and DCC integration
- you need a stable long-term-supported release with frequent updates

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: maintenance
- function: graphics, simulation, gpu-computing
- domain: graphics, simulation
- platform: windows, cpp
- tags: physically-based-rendering, path-tracing, ray-tracing, rendering-engine, embree, light-transport, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- tunabrain/tungsten (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:41.876456+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:19:13.540266+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/tunabrain/tungsten (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:41.876456+00:00, sha 3fe4fc2c8143)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.