The Internet Ray Tracing Competition was one of the Internet's largest and most well-known digital 3D art competitions between 1996 and 2006. It ran recurring competition rounds of image and animation submissions from users, with an emphasis on artwork producing using raytracing, especially Povray. History Started in 1996 the Internet Ray Tracing Competition was active continuously with competitions at least until 2006. It went on hiatus on January 31, 2007, but returned shortly in August 2009 with a newly designed website. Through May and June 2009, the new site ran a short round to test functionality, accepting submissions of any ray-traced images that the submitters produced themselves. The competition, operated by volunteers for 10 years, has ceased since.