Node encoding for spatially-organized ray tracing acceleration data structure

A method, comprising:

• storing, by a computing system, node data for a spatially organized acceleration data structure, including the following node information in a node data structure for a parent node:
• origin coordinates for the node;
• and
• child base address information that indicates a base address of a memory region within which data is stored for multiple child nodes of the parent node;
• for a given child node of the multiple child nodes, child information that includes:
• a field that indicates whether the child node is an interior node or a leaf node;
• for an internal child node, quantized bounding region information for a bounding region corresponding to the child node, wherein the quantized bounding region information encodes bounding region coordinates as offsets relative to the origin coordinates;
• for a leaf child node:
• a field that indicates a size of data for the leaf child node, wherein the spatially organized acceleration data structure supports leaf nodes of different sizes and the parent node includes multiple leaf child nodes having different sizes;
• and
• a field that indicates an offset, within the memory region, at which the data for the leaf node is located, relative to the child base address;
• traversing, by the computing system, multiple nodes of the data structure;
• and
• testing, by the computing system during the traversal, whether a ray intersects a bounding region indicated by a node of the data structure, wherein the testing is based on the node information for the node and ray information for the ray.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a computing device to perform operations comprising:

• generating a spatially organized acceleration data structure, that stores the following node information in a node data structure for a parent node:
• origin coordinates for the node;
• and
• child base address information that indicates a base address of a memory region within which data is stored for multiple child nodes of the parent node;
• for a given child node of the multiple child nodes, child information that includes:
• a field that indicates whether the child node is an interior node or a leaf node;
• for an internal child node, quantized bounding region information for a bounding region corresponding to the child node, wherein the quantized bounding region information encodes bounding region coordinates as offsets relative to the origin coordinates;
• and
• for a leaf child node:
• a field that indicates a size of data for the leaf child node, wherein the spatially organized acceleration data structure supports leaf nodes of different sizes and the parent node includes multiple leaf child nodes having different sizes;
• and
• a field that indicates an offset, within the memory region, at which the data for the leaf node is located, relative to the child base address.