Bounding Prism Hierarchy for Displaced Micro-Mesh Ray Tracing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Ray tracing techniques are computationally expensive and memory-intensive due to the complexity of ray intersection tests and the large data requirements for representing complex scenes, particularly when using bounding volume hierarchies, and displaced micro-meshes increase processing time and memory usage.
Innovation Solution
The use of bounding prism hierarchies for ray tracing, which include top-level bounding prisms and sub-prisms, allows for efficient compression of surface geometry by dynamically generating sub-prisms during intersection testing, reducing memory usage while maintaining high compression ratios and avoiding the need to normalize interpolated normals.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If bounding volume hierarchies are used for ray tracing, then ray tracing efficiency is improved, but memory usage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the bounding volume hierarchy into a coarser grid structure where each cell contains a simplified representation of its contents. This segmentation reduces the total number of elements that need to be stored in memory while maintaining the ability to efficiently traverse and test ray intersections, thereby reducing memory usage while preserving ray tracing efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a simplified copy of the bounding volume hierarchy at a coarser resolution level. Instead of storing all detailed geometric information at the finest level, the system maintains a compressed representation that captures the essential spatial relationships and object locations, reducing memory requirements while enabling efficient ray tracing through the coarser structure.
2Manufacturing precision
If displaced micro-meshes are used to add surface detail, then rendering accuracy is improved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the displaced micro-mesh into hierarchical levels, where coarser levels provide approximate surface representations and finer levels provide detailed representations. The system can process and render at different levels of detail depending on the requirements, allowing efficient processing of surface detail without always requiring the full computational cost of the most detailed level.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial processing by selectively rendering and processing only the necessary levels of micro-mesh detail. Instead of always processing the complete high-resolution displaced micro-mesh, the system can use coarser approximations when sufficient detail is achieved at lower levels, reducing processing time while maintaining adequate rendering accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
Devices and methods for rendering a scene using ray tracing are provided which include prior to ray tracing any frame of the scene: generating, for each frame, a low resolution mesh from a high resolution mesh representing objects in the scene, the low resolution mesh comprising a plurality of micro-meshes each defining a geometric shape; sub-dividing the micro-meshes; and generating, for each micro-mesh, a displaced micro-mesh. For a frame of the scene, at least one displaced micro-mesh is traced using a bounding prism hierarchy on a condition that a prism is hit by the ray. The bounding prism hierarchy comprises the prism bounding the displaced micro-mesh and a plurality of sub-prisms each bounding a portion of the displaced micro-mesh. At least one other displaced micro-mesh is ray traced using the prism without the plurality of sub-prisms on a condition that the prism is not hit by the ray.