Patent ID: 8217935

Claim:
A machine-implemented method of intersection testing for ray tracing, comprising: accessing ray data defining a ray from a non-transitory machine readable medium; accessing geometric shape data, from a non-transitory machine readable medium, defining a position of a geometric shape in a 3-D scene, the geometric shape data being in a Block Floating Point (BFP) format comprising a plurality of significands sharing a common exponent, the plurality of significands being one or more of significands associated with a single vertex defining the geometric shape, and significands associated with a plurality of vertexes defining the geometric shape, wherein the geometric shape is one or more of a primitive defining an object in the 3-D scene and an element of an acceleration structure used for intersection testing rays in the 3-D scene; testing, by a processor, the ray for intersection with the geometric shape based on the ray data and the geometric shape data; and outputting an intersection result in response to the testing indicating a possible intersection of the ray with the geometric shape.