const pointer issue

[flux00]

Hi, I'm writing a ray-tracer wherein one HitPoint object is passed between all the Intersectables in the scene. The Intersectables then store a pointer to themselves inside the HitPoint object. The issue I'm having is that the Intersectable->intersect(HitPoint) function is const, so the this pointer is a const Intersectable * const, and won't let me put it in the HitPoint object.

tl;dr

class Intersectable
{
public:
    virtual void intersect(HitPoint &hp) const = 0;
};

class Sphere : public Intersectable
{
public:
    void intersect(HitPoint &hp) const
    {
        if (intersection_is_good)
        {
            hp.intersectable = this;
        }
    }
};

class HitPoint
{
public:
    Intersectable * const intersectable;    //I don't know what this should be
};

Is there a simple solution, or is this just a poor design?

[D_Drmmr]

Is there a simple solution, or is this just a poor design?

What you've posted seems like a pretty poor design to me. However, the actual problem here is that HitPoint has a const pointer (that is, not pointer to const). That means you can only set the pointer in the HitPoint constructor. If you want to be able to assign the pointer afterwards, you need

const Intersectable* intersectable; // pointer to const Intersectable
// or
Intersectable* intersectable; // pointer to Intersectable

If you want help with your design, please explain why HitPoint needs a pointer to an Intersectable and how you are calling the Intersectable::intersect function.