ref tidy way to defreference or is something else going on ?

[Codifies via Digitalmars-d-learn]

I've a bunch of 4x4 matrix routines in C, in order to avoid 
copying around multiple 4x4 matrices I pass pointers...

I'm assuming that in D it would make sense to use ref ?
what's going on behind the scenes with ref is it just a nice way 
of passing pointers with automagical dereferencing or is 
something more going on?