Ive heard alot about it, and i’ve even checked out the site, but all ive gotten that it is just another ray tracer. I was wondering what its used for, what the interface is like, and how can it improve my blender images. Im sure this question has been posted before, and im sorry if it sounds n00bish.
thanks
. : n e x : .
in case you do not know what a raytracer is…
when rendering, blender (i think) calculates using lightmaps(aka scanline rendering) which does not calculate every ray of light including what the light hits and how it would react (i.e. proper reflections, refraction, etc.) how ever raytracers do (YAFRay,Virtualight,Lightflow, and many more). which means blender fakes raytracing in favor of rendering speed.
as for what it does to your images:
more realistic, longer waiting, crisper (scanline tends to make things look soft, you really have to c it to understand)
Practical Application: you are asked to do a bottle of soda the boss has to have it in pretty soon and consumer paying big $$. what do you do?
a) raytrace b) scanline c) use a combo of both
first take into consideration that you need it done fast, also it has to refract properly(glass bottle) and finally its going to be shown to a presumably large company
suggestion go with a or c
c you can composite later in post preduction(fake refraction,raytrace shadows)
but, personally i would work hard on the modeling and raytrace. only because its the easier of the two, but thats just preference
For rendering 
It has no interface at all (in the sense common people gives to the word ‘interface’) it slurps a text (XML) file and writes a binary (TGA) file
It is a raytracer, and blender is not h3llsomething pretty well outlined this
Stefano