Patent ID: 8063902

Claim:
Non-transitory computer readable media storing computer readable instructions for implementing transmission of ray data generated during ray-tracing based rendering, the method comprising: determining a plurality of rays to emit for intersecting testing in a 3-D scene, each ray having an origin and a direction, wherein one or more attributes shared among the plurality of rays are represented as shared ray data; storing, in a buffer memory, the shared ray data and other ray data that, with the shared ray data, is sufficient to construct the respective origin and direction of each ray of the first plurality, the other ray data comprising data defining a ray type selected from a defined plurality of ray types; reading from the buffer memory, by an intersection testing resource, the shared ray data and other ray data; programming a processor to interpret the shared ray data to identify the one or more shared attributes for the plurality of rays, the interpreting comprising interpreting the shared ray data using the defined ray type, and determining an origin and a direction for each ray of the plurality using the one or more shared attributes and the defined ray type determined from the other ray data stored in the buffer memory; using the determined origins and directions as definitions for respective rays of the plurality during intersection testing; and maintaining a sample buffer storing color information resulting from shading identified ray intersections.