Building an XQuery raytracer with XQSharp

Objective

The objective is to write an XQuery that can convert a scene (represented in XML) that looks something like this:

<scene>
  <background r="0" g="0" b="0" />
  <shapes>
    <plane offset="0" surface="checkerboard">
      <normal x="0" y="1" z="0" />
    </plane>
    <sphere radius="1" surface="shiny">
      <center x="0" y="1" z="0" />
    </sphere>
    <sphere radius=".5" surface="shiny">
      <center x="-1" y=".5" z="1.5" />
    </sphere>
  </shapes>
  <camera>
    <position x="3" y="2" z="4" />
    <look-at x="-1" y="0.5" z="0" />
  </camera>
  <light>
    <position x="-2" y="2.5" z="0" />
    <color r=".49" g=".07" b=".07" />
  </light>
  <light>
    <position x="1.5" y="2.5" z="1.5" />
    <color r=".07" g=".07" b=".49" />
  </light>
  <light>
    <position x="1.5" y="2.5" z="-1.5" />
    <color r=".07" g=".49" b=".07" />
  </light>
  <light>
    <position x="0" y="3.5" z="0" />
    <color r=".21" g=".21" b=".35" />
  </light>
</scene>

into an image that looks something like this:

This sample was inspired by A Ray Tracer in C#3.0.

This tutorial is rather long, so it has been divided into a number of sections. Each section builds on the previous one, so it is intended that they be read in order.

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Building an XQuery raytracer with XQSharp

Objective

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