Ray Tracing

Goddamn all of these homework threads. Let's talk about something interesting.

I'm starting work on a ray-tracer for shits, /proggles/ Any tips on speed improvements? It's being written in C.
I know the show stopper (usually) is having to check each element in the scene and see if it has been intersected by a casted ray. Any ideas on improvements in that area?

>>31
Where do you study? Sounds like my university. All of the people who never programmed before college still can't program. I'm better than I was when I made my ray tracer, and I've always thought about going back and making a better one.