The primary feature of mental ray is the achievement of high performance through parallelism on both multiprocessor machines and across render farms. The software uses acceleration
techniques such as scanline for primary visible surface determination and binary space partitioning for secondary rays. It also supports caustics and physically correct simulation of global illumination employing photon maps. Any combination of diffuse, glossy (soft or scattered), and specular reflection and transmission can be simulated. mental ray was designed to be integrated into a third-party application using an API or be used as a standalone program using the .mi scene file format for batch-mode rendering. Up to this moment there are many programs integrating this renderer such as Autodesk Maya, 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD, and Revit, SoftimageXSI, Side Effects Software's Houdini, SolidWorks and Dassault Système's
CATIA.
techniques such as scanline for primary visible surface determination and binary space partitioning for secondary rays. It also supports caustics and physically correct simulation of global illumination employing photon maps. Any combination of diffuse, glossy (soft or scattered), and specular reflection and transmission can be simulated. mental ray was designed to be integrated into a third-party application using an API or be used as a standalone program using the .mi scene file format for batch-mode rendering. Up to this moment there are many programs integrating this renderer such as Autodesk Maya, 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD, and Revit, SoftimageXSI, Side Effects Software's Houdini, SolidWorks and Dassault Système's
CATIA.