# US 11,908,063 B2 · Displacement-centric acceleration for ray tracing > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 11,908,063 B2 - Document ID: US11908063B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 17/365,043 - Filed: 2021-07-01 - Published: 2023-01-19 - Granted: 2024-02-20 - Earliest claimed: 2021-07-01 - Assignees: Adobe Inc. - Applicants: Adobe Inc. - Inventors: Theo Thonat; Xin Sun; Tamy Boubekeur; Nathan Carr; Francois Beaune - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US11908063B2 ## CPC - G06T 15/04: Texture mapping - G06T 15/06: Ray-tracing - G06T 17/20: Finite element generation, e.g. wire-frame surface description, {tesselation} - G06T 2210/12: Bounding box - G06T 2210/36: Level of detail - G06T: IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL ## Abstract Aspects and features of the present disclosure provide a direct ray tracing operator with a low memory footprint for surfaces enriched with displacement maps. A graphics editing application can be used to manipulate displayed representations of a 3D object that include surfaces with displacement textures. The application creates an independent map of a displaced surface. The application ray-traces bounding volumes on the fly and uses the intersection of a query ray with a bounding volume to produce rendering information for a displaced surface. The rendering information can be used to generate displaced surfaces for various base surfaces without significant re-computation so that updated images can be rendered quickly, in real time or near real time. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A method comprising: accessing, by a rendering system, a native base surface defined by a mesh of polygons and a map of displacement values useable to render a textured surface corresponding to the native base surface; and for a polygon of the native base surface: precomputing a conservative bounding volume for the polygon, the conservative bounding volume including a portion of a displaced surface as determined by the polygon and the map of displacement values; identifying, by a displacement acceleration module of the rendering system and by using (i) the polygon of the native base surface, (ii) at least one real-time displacement parameter value, and (iii) the conservative bounding volume, a plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes corresponding to the polygon; determining, by the displacement acceleration module, an intersection of a query ray with at least one of the plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes to provide at least one of a 3D position or a texture coordinate usable for rendering the textured surface; and storing, by the displacement acceleration module, the at least one of the 3D position or the texture coordinate configured for rendering the textured surface using the native base surface. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the conservative bounding volume or the plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes comprises an axis-aligned bounding box. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1 further comprising rendering, by a rendering system, the textured surface using at least one of the 3D position or the texture coordinate. ### Claim 4 (depends on 3) The method of claim 3, further comprising: selectively accessing a real-time geometric quality indicator; and selectively using, by the rendering system, the real-time geometric quality indicator to render the textured surface. ### Claim 5 (depends on 3) The method of claim 3, further comprising rendering, by the rendering system, the textured surface with a varying level of detail by rendering different levels of detail across the mesh of polygons. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The method of claim 1, further comprising producing, using a mapping module, the map of displacement values, wherein the displacement values comprise minimum and maximum displacement values and the map of displacement values comprises a minmax MIP map. ### Claim 7 A system comprising: a processor; and a memory device configured to store a native base surface defined by a mesh of polygons and a map of displacement values useable to render a textured surface corresponding to the native base surface, the memory device further storing a displacement acceleration module executable by the processor for performing operations comprising; precomputing a conservative bounding volume for a polygon of the mesh of polygons, the conservative bounding volume including a portion of a displaced surface; identifying, by using (i) the polygon of the native base surface, (ii) at least one real-time displacement parameter value, and (iii) the conservative bounding volume, a plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes; producing a 3D position and a texture coordinate based on an intersection of a query ray with at least one of the plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes; and rendering the textured surface using at least one of the 3D position or the texture coordinate for the polygon. ### Claim 8 (depends on 7) The system of claim 7, wherein at least one of the conservative bounding volume or the plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes comprises an axis-aligned bounding box. ### Claim 9 (depends on 7) The system of claim 7, the operations further comprising: selectively accessing a real-time geometric quality indicator; and selectively using the real-time geometric quality indicator to render the textured surface. ### Claim 10 (depends on 7) The system of claim 7, wherein the textured surface comprises a varying level of detail across the mesh of polygons. ### Claim 11 (depends on 7) The system of claim 7, further comprising a mapping module configured to produce the map of displacement values. ### Claim 12 (depends on 11) The system of claim 11, wherein the map of displacement values comprises a minmax MIP map. ### Claim 13 A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program code executable by a processor to perform operations, the operations comprising: accessing a native base surface defined by a mesh of polygons and a map of displacement values useable to render a textured surface; precomputing a conservative bounding volume for each polygon of the mesh of polygons, the conservative bounding volume including a portion of a displaced surface; a step for producing a 3D position and a texture coordinate for a polygon based on an intersection of a query ray with at least one of a plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes corresponding to the polygon and associated with the conservative bounding volume; selectively using at least one real-time displacement parameter value to identify the at least one of the plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes; and rendering the textured surface using at least one of the 3D position or the texture coordinate for the polygon. ### Claim 14 (depends on 13) The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein at least one of the conservative bounding volume or the plurality of increasingly granular bounding volumes comprises an axis-aligned bounding box. ### Claim 15 (depends on 13) The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, the operations further comprising: selectively accessing a real-time geometric quality indicator; and selectively using the real-time geometric quality indicator to render the textured surface. ### Claim 16 (depends on 13) The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the textured surface comprises a varying level of detail across the mesh of polygons. ### Claim 17 (depends on 13) The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the map of displacement values comprises a minmax MIP map.