Patent ID: 7969434

Claim:
In a ray tracing machine system, a method for determining intersections between geometric primitives composing a scene and rays traveling in the scene, the method comprising: receiving, in the machine system, an abstraction of a three-dimensional scene composed of geometric primitives, the abstraction including nodes of geometric acceleration data bounding selections of the primitives, the selections of varying relative granularity, and the nodes arranged in a graph with edges connecting pairs of nodes; traversing, in the machine system, the graph with collections of rays, the rays of each collection identified at least by testing rays traveling in the scene for possible intersection with node(s) of the graph selected for test, and for any ray detected to possibly intersect one of the node(s) selected for test, adding that ray to a respective collection corresponding to that possibly intersected node, for further intersection testing with connected node(s); deferring, in the machine system, the further intersection testing until that collection is determined ready, and then selecting, for test, node(s) connected to that possibly intersected node; and while traversing the graph, testing, in the machine system, for intersection any primitive bounded by a test node that is not also bounded by another node of higher relative granularity than the test node, the testing for rays in a collection associated with the test node, and outputting indications of detected possible intersections.