Bounding Volume Splitting for Ray Tracing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing techniques for splitting bounding volumes of primitives in graphics processing fail to reliably improve ray tracing performance and often increase memory usage unpredictably, leading to decreased performance in some scenes.
Innovation Solution
The method involves splitting bounding volumes of primitives based on pre-determined spatial split planes aligned with the x, y, or z axes, which are used to construct a hierarchical tree data structure, minimizing node overlap and optimizing memory usage by bounding the number of splits performed.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If bounding volumes are split based on surface area or volume thresholds, then the number of splits can be controlled, but ray tracing performance does not reliably improve and may decrease in some scenes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the splitting criterion from surface area or volume thresholds to alignment with pre-determined spatial split planes. This parameter change ensures that splits occur at meaningful spatial boundaries that correspond to the hierarchical tree structure, reliably improving ray tracing performance by minimizing node overlap regardless of the specific scene geometry.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary determination of spatial split planes before executing the bounding volume splits. By pre-establishing the split planes based on the hierarchical tree structure, the method ensures that subsequent splits align with the intended spatial partitioning, guaranteeing performance improvement without requiring scene-specific threshold tuning.
2Reliability
If bounding boxes are split to improve ray tracing performance, then performance may improve in some scenes, but the amount of memory needed to store the generated data becomes difficult to predict
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes from threshold-based splitting (where the number of splits varies unpredictably) to plane-based splitting with a bounded maximum number of splits. This parameter change allows memory allocation to be predicted based on the known maximum splits, while still achieving reliable performance improvement through alignment with spatial partitioning planes.
3Ease of manufacture
If conventional splitting techniques are used, then the process is simple to implement, but ray tracing performance decreases in some scenes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary determination of spatial split planes before executing the bounding volume splits. This preliminary action maintains implementation simplicity by providing a clear, deterministic procedure, while simultaneously ensuring reliable performance improvement by aligning splits with the hierarchical tree structure's spatial partitioning.
Data Source
AI summary
A system, method, and computer program product are provided for splitting primitives. A plurality of primitives is received for a scene and a pre-determined plane that intersects the scene is identified. Bounding volumes of the plurality of primitives that are intersected by the pre-determined plane are split, where a bounding volume that encloses each intersected primitive of the plurality of primitives is split into a first bounding volume and a second bounding volume at an intersection of the bounding volume and the pre-determined plane.