US 12,073,504 B2
Hardware-based techniques applicable for ray tracing for efficiently representing and processing an arbitrary bounding volume
Gregory Muthler, Chapel Hill, NC (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 Apr. 20, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/137,418.
Application 18/137,418 is a continuation of application No. 17/681,168, filed on Feb. 25, 2022, granted, now 11,663,770.
Application 17/681,168 is a continuation of application No. 16/897,764, filed on Jun. 10, 2020, granted, now 11,295,508, issued on Apr. 5, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0316632 A1, Oct. 5, 2023
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06T 15/06 (2011.01); G06F 9/50 (2006.01); G06T 15/08 (2011.01); G06T 17/00 (2006.01); G06T 17/10 (2006.01)
CPC G06T 15/06 (2013.01) [G06F 9/5027 (2013.01); G06T 15/08 (2013.01); G06T 17/005 (2013.01); G06T 17/10 (2013.01); G06T 2210/12 (2013.01)] 30 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A ray tracing device comprising:
memory configured to store at least a portion of an acceleration data structure defining a primitive, a first bounding volume bounding a first portion of the primitive, and a second bounding volume bounding a second portion of the primitive; and
circuitry operatively coupled to read the at least a portion of the acceleration data structure from the memory and configured to perform operations comprising:
receive information defining a ray;
test that the ray intersects the first bounding volume;
test that the ray intersects the second bounding volume; and
generate and process with common ray-primitive intersection testing, a ray-bounding volume intersection indication common to the first bounding volume and the second bounding volume.