Parallel divide and conquer ray tracing

Abstract

Divide and Conquer Ray Tracing (DACRT) is a recent technique which constructs no explicit acceleration structure. It creates and traverses an implicit hierarchy in a depth-first fashion recursively and is suited for dynamic scenes that change constantly. In this paper, we present a parallel version of DACRT that runs entirely on the GPU, which exploits efficient primitives like sort and reduce. Our approach suits the GPU well, with a low memory footprint. Our implementation outperforms the serial CPU algorithm for both primary and secondary ray passes. We show good performance on primary pass and on advanced effects.