US 12,354,212 B2
Method for forward progress and programmable timeouts of tree traversal mechanisms in hardware
Greg Muthler, Chapel Hill, NC (US); Ronald Charles Babich, Jr., Murrysville, PA (US); William Parsons Newhall, Jr., Woodside, CA (US); Peter Nelson, San Francisco, CA (US); James Robertson, Austin, TX (US); and John Burgess, Austin, TX (US)
Assigned to NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed by NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US)
Filed on Jan. 23, 2024, as Appl. No. 18/420,449.
Application 18/420,449 is a division of application No. 17/889,545, filed on Aug. 17, 2022, granted, now 11,928,772.
Application 17/889,545 is a continuation of application No. 17/111,844, filed on Dec. 4, 2020, granted, now 11,455,768, issued on Sep. 27, 2022.
Application 17/111,844 is a continuation of application No. 16/101,232, filed on Aug. 10, 2018, granted, now 10,885,698, issued on Jan. 5, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2024/0169655 A1, May 23, 2024
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06T 15/06 (2011.01); G06F 9/38 (2018.01); G06N 5/046 (2023.01); G06T 1/20 (2006.01); G06T 1/60 (2006.01); G06T 17/00 (2006.01)
CPC G06T 15/06 (2013.01) [G06F 9/3877 (2013.01); G06N 5/046 (2013.01); G06T 1/20 (2013.01); G06T 1/60 (2013.01); G06T 17/005 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A ray tracer comprising:
traversal and testing hardware configured to traverse an acceleration data structure and test for bounding volume and/or geometric primitive intersection with a ray or rays specified by ray information; and
a programmable monitoring circuit connected to the traversal and testing hardware and configured to monitor how much the traversal and testing hardware is being used to traverse and test the acceleration data structure for intersection with the specified ray or rays and to interrupt traversal and testing associated with a first ray by the traversal and testing hardware when it is determined that usage of the traversal and testing hardware to traverse and/or test the acceleration data structure for intersection with the specified ray or rays is excessive without interrupting traversal and testing associated with at least one other ray being tested during the interruption.