From NAND to Raytracer: Raytracing on the Hack computer (feat. Rust)

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2021-06-14 16:00:11

I recently spent some time going through the amazing nand2tetris course, and assignment #9 is to implement something with the Jack programming language that runs on the Hack computer. My friend encouraged me to try writing a raytracer, which is an algorithm that generates physically realistic images by simulating light bouncing off of objects. The output of the raytracer is a beautiful image with shadows, reflections, and other physical phenomena. Implementing a raytracer requires a bit of math and linear algebra, and it seemed like a fun challenge to write something complex with the limited capabilities of the Jack language.

I’d like to share my approach and the challenges I faced reimplementing my own math system and optimizing a Jack program with limited tools. Though you may never need to do this, you might learn a lot about how computers perform math, and gain an appreciation for math libraries!

First, I looked at what the Jack language had to offer. I knew that debugging would be really challenging, so I was looking for how easy it would be to debug, print logging statements, and set breakpoints.