CUDA-based Raycaster

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<p align="center">
  <h1 align="center">CUDA-based Raycaster</h1>

  <p align="center">
    This project implements a raycaster on nvidia GPUs, visualizing wind patterns through the use of silhouette shading
  </p>

## Table of Contents

* [About the Project](#about) 
* [Dependencies](#dependencies)
* [Installation](#installation)
  * [Running](#running)
  * [Screenshots](#screenshots) 
* [Modules](#modules) 


## About

This project was developed as part of the course Geo-Visualization at the University of Groningen.
It contains a CUDA-based raycaster which visualizes wind patterns using a silhouette shading.
The program also includes various configuration options, which can be set as the program runs (see [Screenshots](#screenshots)).
The program expects to use the MERRA2 dataset, which can be found [here](https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/M2I6NPANA_5.12.4/summary?keywords=M2I6NPANA_5.12.4).


## Dependencies

The project depends on a few libraries.
Below is a list of these along with versions that _will_ work.
Newer/older versions of the libraries may also compile and run properly, but this has not been tested.
 * OpenGL[^1] Tested using the Mesa (1:24.3.3-2) driver.
 * glfw3 (3.4-2)
 * Cuda (12.6.3-1)
 * Netcdf (4.9.2-6)
 * Netcdf-cxx (4.3.1-4)
 * Dear ImGUI (submodule within repository)


## Installation

Once all libraries are installed compiling the program is quite straightforward. First, initialize the Dear ImGUI submodule:
```bash
git submodule update --init
```

Then compile using CMake:
```bash
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make 
./cuda-raytracer
```
Make sure the program is executed on the nvidia GPU, or it will crash on startup.
For example, on Arch the command `prime-run ./cuda-raytracer` would make sure the program utilizes the GPU.


## Running

TODO: this section


## Screenshots

TODO: add cool screenshots


## Modules

TODO: talk about program design a little