Fused bounding volume hierarchy for multiple levels of detail

Abstract

A fused bounding volume hierarchy, which is a combination of a base bounding volume hierarchy and one or more non-base bounding volume hierarchies, is generated. For each non-base bounding volume hierarchy, multiple subtrees in the non-base bounding volume hierarchy that include less than a threshold number of child nodes are identified. Each of these subtrees is then fused with the base bounding volume hierarchy at one of the nodes of the base bounding volume hierarchy, and an identifier of the level of detail for the non-base bounding volume hierarchy is included in the node. When displaying a scene or image, for a particular portion of the scene or image the level of detail to use is identified. The fused bounding volume hierarchy is traversed and the geometric objects in the nodes of the fused bounding volume hierarchy corresponding to the identified level of detail are displayed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.