Ray Tracing in One Weekend
Ray Tracing in One Weekend by Peter Shirleyby Peter Shirley and Trevor D. Black and Steve Hollasch
Shares rank 13 of 115 programming books by recommenders
A free, short series that walks readers through building a basic ray tracer step by step. Recommended as a first stop for learning graphics programming from scratch.
A free, short series that walks readers through building a basic ray tracer step by step. Recommended as a first stop for learning graphics programming from scratch.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Free, step-by-step ray tracer guide
“The greatest resource I've found on the internet is the Ray Tracing in One Weekend series.”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: I wrote a C++ ray tracer from scratch without AI” “I'd suggest starting with the Ray Tracing In One Weekend minibook series first”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “I canceled my book deal” Good starting point for graphics
“I'd suggest starting with the Ray Tracing In One Weekend minibook series first”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “I canceled my book deal” “a lot of people recommend "Ray Tracing in One Weekend"”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “How do functions like alloca allocate memory from the stack?” Classic resource recommended widely
“HN classics that I wish I had completed long ago”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Linux from Scratch” “Ray Tracing in One Weekend series”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “What to Learn to Be a Graphics Programmer”
Other programming books people recommend
The four most recommended other programming books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting Interpretersby Robert Nystrom | 60 | 4 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Clean Codeby Robert C. Martin | 31 | 87 | 26% | 9 | — | — |
| The Pragmatic Programmerby Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas | 28 | 1 | 97% | 7 | — | Approved |
| How to Design Programsby Matthias Felleisen and Robert Bruce Findler and Matthew Flatt and Shriram Krishnamurthi | 18 | 2 | 90% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Ray Tracing in One Weekendby Peter Shirley and Trevor D. Black and Steve HollaschThis page | 9 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a lot of people recommend "Ray Tracing in One Weekend"”
“Ray Tracing in One Weekend series”
“The greatest resource I've found on the internet is the Ray Tracing in One Weekend series.”
“Some others along the same lines:”
“HN classics that I wish I had completed long ago”
“I'd suggest starting with the Ray Tracing In One Weekend minibook series first”
“welcome to this wonderful world”
“Implement a CPU ray tracer.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.