Space subdivision for fast ray tracing

@article{Glassner1984SpaceSF,
  title={Space subdivision for fast ray tracing},
  author={Andrew S. Glassner},
  journal={IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications},
  year={1984},
  volume={4},
  pages={15-24}
}
  • A. Glassner
  • Published 1 October 1984
  • Geology, Computer Science
  • IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
An algorithm is described that speeds up ray-tracing techniques by reducing the number of time-consuming object-ray intersection calculations that have to be made. The algorithm is based on subdividing space into an octree, associating a given voxel with only those objects whose surfaces pass through the volume of the voxel. It includes a technique for obtaining fast access to any node and a mechanism for finding the next node intersected by a ray when it has hit nothing in the current node… 
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714 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
15
Background Citations
117
Methods Citations
122

714 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Ray tracing complex scenes
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A new algorithm for speeding up ray-object intersection calculations is presented and a new hierarchy traversal algorithm is presented which is efficient in the sense that objects along the ray are queried in an efficient order.
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An efficient hierarchicaltraversal algorithm for ray tracing
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A new hierarchy traversal scheme is described to reduce the number of raybounding volume intersection tests for secondary rays and a plane-sweep method is proposed to make fewer intersection checks for eye rays.
The HERO Algorithm for Ray-Tracing Octrees
An algorithm is presented for rapid traversal of octree data structures, in order to enhance the speed of ray tracing for scenes of high complexity. At each level of the octree, the algorithm…
Heuristics for ray tracing using space subdivision
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Two heuristics for space subdivisions using bintrees are examined based on the intuition that surface area is a good estimate of intersection probability and the fact that the optimal splitting plane lies between the spatial median and the object median planes of a volume.
A Fast Voxel Traversal Algorithm for Ray Tracing
TLDR
A fast and simple voxel traversal algorithm through a 3D space partition is introduced that is a variant of the DDA line algorithm and allows for simpler traversal at the expense of more voxels.
An Efficient Algorithm for Ray Tracing
TLDR
A new algorithm that performs more efficient ray tracing compared to existing algorithms based on the “divide-and-conquer” technique well known from the area of lists sorting, and speeds up the intersections and light-visibility tests for the first hit.
ADAPTIVE VOXEL SUBDIVISION FOR RAY TRACING
TLDR
This integration of regular and adaptive spatial subdivision methods allows images consisting of large regularly distributed objects and small dense objects to be ray traced efficiently.
Ray Tracing Optimization Utilizing Projective
TLDR
New techniques for speeding up the ray tracing algorithm are presented, utilizing bounding rectangular extents around the primitives constituting the scene, which can be beneficial for many diferent types of primitives to be ray traced.
Object and ray coherence in the optimization of the ray tracing algorithm
TLDR
The authors' proposal for ray tracing optimization is based on the combined use of object and ray coherence when tracing beams in scenes subdivided by octrees, facilitating the simultaneous tracing of rays integrated in a beam.
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