Unnecessary Ray Constructor when Raycasting

Hi all,

Noticed something strange today when raycasting. It would seem that even if I feed a Ray into the Raycast method, the profiler shows the a Ray constructor being executed. F12'ing on the methods reveals the following.

1. My code:

Code (CSharp):

1. var ray = new Ray(Vector3.zero, Vector3.forward);
2. Physics.Raycast(ray);

2. Physics.Raycast source:

Code (CSharp):

1. public static bool Raycast(Ray ray) => Physics.defaultPhysicsScene.Raycast(ray.origin, ray.direction);

3. PhysicsScene.Raycast source:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. public bool Raycast(
3.   Vector3 origin,
4.   Vector3 direction,
5.   [DefaultValue("Mathf.Infinity")] float maxDistance = float.PositiveInfinity,
6.   [DefaultValue("Physics.DefaultRaycastLayers")] int layerMask = -5,
7.   [DefaultValue("QueryTriggerInteraction.UseGlobal")] QueryTriggerInteraction queryTriggerInteraction = QueryTriggerInteraction.UseGlobal)
8. {
9.   float magnitude = direction.magnitude;
10.   if ((double) magnitude <= 1.40129846432482E-45)
11.     return false;
12.   Vector3 direction1 = direction / magnitude;
13.   return PhysicsScene.Internal_RaycastTest(this, new Ray(origin, direction1), maxDistance, layerMask, queryTriggerInteraction);
14. }
15.  

1. I create a Ray and feed it into Raycast
2. Physics.Raycast unpacks my Ray and pases the pos and dir parameters into the PhysicsScene Raycast method
3. PhysicsScene Raycast creates a new Ray (line 13) and passes that into PhysicsScene.Internal_RaycastTest

Why is there not a PhysicsScene method which accepts a Ray, which can then pass that straight onto the internal method, which clearly accepts a Ray, avoiding the extra Ray constructor?

Worth noting that the Ray constructor normalises the direction vector which is why this is slow and should be avoided.

Code (CSharp):

1. public Ray(Vector3 origin, Vector3 direction)
2. {
3.   this.m_Origin = origin;
4.   this.m_Direction = direction.normalized;
5. }

Cheers,
Andy