iray is an intuitive to operate, interactive, consistent, high-performance global illumination rendering technology that generates photorealistic imagery by simulating the physical behavior of light.

Unlike current ray-tracing renderers, iray does not depend on complex renderer specific shaders and settings to approximate global illumination. iray achieves its high level of performance by taking full advantage of the CUDA programming model, allowing interactive previewing on both single and multiple NVIDIA GPU platforms. iray balances intuitive ease of use and scene setup with the highest quality photorealistic final frame output and interactive performance.

iray generates photorealistic imagery without introducing rendering algorithm specific artifacts, and without requiring the use of renderer specific parameterizations.  iray progressively refines the image until maximum fine detail is reached, providing a single process which smoothly combines interactive pre-visualization and final frame rendering.

When coupled with NVIDIA GPUs, iray progressively produces final frame photorealistic images, with changes displayed at interactive frame rates.

Interpolation techniques, which trade final quality, predictability, and simplicity of scene specification for performance, form the core of most current global illumination renderers. Unlike them, iray rendering is based on deterministic and consistent global illumination simulation algorithms that converge without introducing persistent approximation artifacts.

iray uses a highly optimized BSDF and EDF shading framework as opposed to an involved collection of programmable shaders.

Lighting support in iray includes:

• HDR environment maps
• IES profile lights
• Spot, point, and directional lights
• Area lights of all shapes 
• mental ray Sun and Sky shader