Apparatus and method for asynchronous ray tracing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2024257433-A1
Application number	US-202418414841-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 17, 2024
Priority date	Mar 15, 2020
Publication date	Aug 1, 2024
Grant date	—

Abstract

Apparatus and method for asynchronous ray tracing. For example, one embodiment of a processor comprises: a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) generator to construct a BVH comprising a plurality of hierarchically arranged nodes including a root node, a plurality of internal nodes, and a plurality of leaf nodes comprising primitives, wherein each internal node comprises a child node to either the root node or another internal node and each leaf node comprises a child node to an internal node; a first storage bank to be arranged as a first plurality of entries; a second storage bank to be arranged as a second plurality of entries, wherein each entry of the first plurality of entries and the second plurality of entries is to store a ray to be traversed through the BVH; an allocator circuit to distribute an incoming ray to either the first storage bank or the second storage bank based on a relative numbers of rays currently stored in the first and second storage banks; and traversal circuitry to alternate between selecting a next ray from the first storage bank and the second storage bank, the traversal circuitry to traverse the next ray through the BVH by reading a next BVH node from a top of a BVH node stack and determining whether the next ray intersects the next BVH node.

First claim

1 . (canceled)

2 . An apparatus comprising:
a storage bank to store entries of a stack, the entries corresponding to one or more nodes of a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH); traversal circuitry to perform ray traversal and/or intersection operations on one or more rays using the entries of the stack; and stack circuitry to process the entries of the stack, wherein processing a first stack entry of the stack comprises reading the first stack entry for a node from the stack and updating one or more control bits of the first stack entry.

3 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein updating the one or more control bits of the first stack entry causes the first stack entry to be evicted from the stack.

4 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein processing the first stack entry comprises popping the first stack entry and pushing a set of stack entries corresponding to one or more child nodes of the node to the stack, the one or more child nodes intersect with a ray and are sorted based on intersection distance to the ray.

5 . The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein pushing the set of stack entries causes removing, from the stack to a memory, stack entries for nodes at a higher level of the BVH.

6 . The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the set of stack entries are loaded to the stack when the nodes at the higher level of the BVH are to be processed by the traversal circuitry.

7 . The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein popping a last stack entry of the set of stack entries causes retrieval of a root node of a second BVH.

8 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the first stack entry indicates whether the node is an internal node or leaf node of the BVH.

9 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the stack is a first-in and first out stack.

10 . A method comprising:
storing entries of a stack in a storage bank, the entries corresponding to one or more nodes of a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH); performing, by traversal circuitry, ray traversal and/or intersection operations on one or more rays using the entries of the stack; and processing the entries of the stack, wherein processing a first stack entry of the stack comprises reading the first stack entry for a node from the stack and updating one or more control bits of the first stack entry.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein updating the one or more control bits of the first stack entry causes the first stack entry to be evicted from the stack.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein processing the first stack entry comprises popping the first stack entry and pushing a set of stack entries corresponding to one or more child nodes of the node to the stack, the one or more child nodes intersect with a ray and are sorted based on intersection distance to the ray.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein pushing the set of stack entries causes removing, from the stack to a memory, stack entries for nodes at a higher level of the BVH.

14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the set of stack entries are loaded to the stack when the nodes at the higher level of the BVH are to be processed by the traversal circuitry.

15 . The method of claim 13 , wherein popping a last stack entry of the set of stack entries causes retrieval of a root node of a second BVH.

16 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the first stack entry indicates whether the node is an internal node or leaf node of the BVH.

17 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the stack is a first-in and first out stack.

18 . A non-transitory machine-readable medium having program code stored thereon which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform:
storing entries of a stack in a storage bank, the entries corresponding to one or more nodes of a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH); performing, by traversal circuitry, ray traversal and/or intersection operations on one or more rays using the entries of the stack; and processing the entries of the stack, wherein processing a first stack entry of the stack comprises reading the first stack entry for a node from the stack and updating one or more control bits of the first stack entry.

19 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 18 , wherein updating the one or more control bits of the first stack entry causes the first stack entry to be evicted from the stack.

20 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 18 , wherein processing the first stack entry comprises popping the first stack entry and pushing a set of stack entries corresponding to one or more child nodes of the node to the stack, the one or more child nodes intersect with a ray and are sorted based on intersection distance to the ray.

21 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 18 , wherein the first stack entry indicates whether the node is an internal node or leaf node of the BVH.

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Surti Prasoonkumar
• Appu Abhishek R
• Vaidyanathan Karthik
• Mandal Saikat
• Norris Michael

Classifications

• G06F3/0659

  Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling · CPC title

• G06F3/0673

  Single storage device · CPC title

• G06T15/06 Primary

  Ray-tracing · CPC title

• G06F3/0604

  Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management · CPC title

• G06T2200/28

  involving image processing hardware · CPC title