Debugging and Visualizing

Color as function of reflected view direction: 

Responsible code (found in sphere's shade function)

#ifdef DEBUGGING
{
vec3f normal = hr.hitNormal;
normal.normalize();
vec3f viewDir = hr.startPt-hr.hitPoint;
vec3f refvDir = reflectVector(hr.hitNormal, viewDir);         
                                refvDir.normalize();
viewDir.normalize();
vec3f unitvec = refvDir;

shadeRec.color = (unitvec + vec3f(1.f)) * .5;
return shadeRec;
}
#endif

This makes sense, considering the axis to color correspondence: Red- X, Green - Y, Blue - Z. Replacing "unitvec" with other variables gives different debugging images. For instance, substituting hr.hitNormals gives: 

 

Color as function of Hit Normals: