Dynamically Allocated Memory-Backed Traversal Stack for Ray Tracing Hardware

Abstract: systems and methods for efficient memory management during ray tracing are described. a ray tracing system assigns a memory stack to a ray. the ray, when intersection tested against objects of a node, accesses data that is stored in the memory stack. when data is to be consumed from the memory stack by the ray, the ray tracing system uses a memory pointer associated with the ray to locate the requested data. when data is to be stored to the memory stack, the memory allocation circuitry stores data in a free memory block and uses a linked list to link the memory block with other memory blocks storing additional data for the ray.

Inventor(s): David William John Pankratz, Michael John Livesley, David Kirk McAllister

CPC Classification: G06T1/60 (Memory management)

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