V-Ray is a rendering engine that is used as an extension of certain 3D computer graphics software. The core developers of V-Ray are Vladimir Koylazov and Peter Mitev of Chaos Software production studio established in 1997, based in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is a rendering engine that uses advanced techniques, for example global illumination algorithms such as path tracing, photon mapping, irradiance maps and directly computed global illumination. The use of these techniques often makes it preferable to conventional renderers which are provided as standard with 3d software, and generally renders using these technique can appear more photo-realistic, as actual lighting effects are more realistically emulated. V-Ray is used in the development of film productions and multi-million dollar game productions. It is also used extensively in making realistic 3D renderings for architecture.