Patent Document ID: 20090167763
Application ID: 12245763
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. In a computer graphics system comprising a computer and a display element, the display element being operable to display a human-perceptible image in response to a display-controlling electrical output from the computer, the computer being operable to generate the display-controlling electrical output based on calculations of pixel values for pixels in the image, respective pixel values being representative of at least one point in a scene as recorded on an image plane of a simulated camera, the computer being operable to generate pixel values for an image using a ray-tracing methodology, the ray-tracing methodology comprising the simulating of at least one ray shot from the pixel into a scene, or from the scene to a pixel along a selected direction, the ray-tracing methodology further comprising the calculating of the intersections of rays and surfaces of objects in the scene and the simulating of trajectories of rays illuminating objects in the scene, the improvement comprising: within the computer, constructing a bounding interval hierarchy (BIH) using quantized planes to reduce memory requirements while maintaining a selected degree of precision.