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International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics

VISIGRAPP 2014: Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics - Theory and Applications pp 78–93Cite as

Multi-kernel Ray Traversal for Graphics Processing Units

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 550))

Abstract

Ray tracing is a very popular family of algorithms that are used to compute images with high visual quality. One of its core challenges is designing an efficient mapping of ray traversal computations to massively parallel hardware architectures like modern algorithms graphics processing units (GPUs).

In this paper we investigate the performance of state-of-the-art ray traversal algorithms on GPUs and discuss their potentials and limitations. Based on this analysis, a novel ray traversal scheme called batch tracing is proposed. It subdivides the task into multiple kernels, each of which is designed for efficient parallel execution. Our algorithm achieves comparable performance to current approaches and represents a promising direction for future research.

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References

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Acknowledgements

We thank Marko Dabrovic for providing the Sibenik cathedral model and the University of Utah for the Fairy Scene. Many thanks also go to Timo Aila for making his testing and benchmarking framework publicly available. We also want to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für ComputerGraphik und Wissensvisualisierung, TU Graz, Inffeldgasse 16c, Graz, Austria

    Thomas Schiffer & Dieter W. Fellner

  2. TU Darmstadt und Fraunhofer IGD, Darmstadt, Germany

    Dieter W. Fellner

Authors
  1. Thomas Schiffer
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  2. Dieter W. Fellner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Schiffer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dip. di Matematica e Informatica, Università di Catania, Catania, Catania, Italy

    Sebastiano Battiato

  2. Inria/ZIRST, Saint Ismier, France

    Sabine Coquillart

  3. INRIA-Rennes/MimeTIC Tean, Rennes cedex, France

    Julien Pettré

  4. Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Robert S. Laramee

  5. Computer Science, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden

    Andreas Kerren

  6. do IPS, Escola Superior de Tecnologia, Setúbal, Portugal

    José Braz

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Schiffer, T., Fellner, D.W. (2015). Multi-kernel Ray Traversal for Graphics Processing Units. In: Battiato, S., Coquillart, S., Pettré, J., Laramee, R., Kerren, A., Braz, J. (eds) Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics - Theory and Applications. VISIGRAPP 2014. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 550. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25117-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25117-2_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-25116-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-25117-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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