Compacting results vectors between stages of graphics processing

摘要

Ray tracing, and more generally, graphics operations taking place in a 3-D scene, involve a plurality of constituent graphics operations. Responsibility for executing these operations can be distributed among different sets of computation units. The sets of computation units each can execute a set of instructions on a parallelized set of input data elements and produce results. These results can be that the data elements can be categorized into different subsets, where each subset requires different processing as a next step. The data elements of these different subsets can be coalesced so that they are contiguous in a results set. The results set can be used to schedule additional computation, and if there are empty locations of a scheduling vector (after accounting for the members of a given subset), then those empty locations can be filled with other data elements that require the same further processing as that subset.

主权项

1. A system for processing rays in 3-D rendering, comprising:
a plurality of ray processing units, each ray processing unit comprising logic for testing a ray for intersection with one or more shapes comprising one or more elements of an acceleration structure, or one or more elements of geometry, and a memory configured to store definition data for rays that can be tested for intersection by that ray processing unit; and a memory hierarchy configured to store data defining elements of the acceleration structure and elements of the geometry, and wherein the memory hierarchy is configured to store definition data for rays scheduled for ray testing, the definition data for rays containing both ray origin and ray direction data, wherein each of the ray processing units is configured to receive data from an interconnect and to process the received data to identify, within the respective memory of that ray processing unit, one or more rays to be tested for intersection with a shape, and to output an indication of a result of the testing for intersection of that shape with the one or more identified rays.