Hardware accelerated construction of SAH-based bounding volume hierarchies for interactive ray tracing

Abstract

The ray tracing algorithm is known primarily for producing highly realistic images, but also for its high computational cost. Perhaps the most effective method for accelerating ray tracing is through the use of spatial index structures, such as kd-trees and bounding volume hierarchies. In highly dynamic scenarios, these structures must be rebuilt frequently, constituting a considerable portion of the total time to image.