Path tracking for hardware-accelerated ray transforms

A method, comprising:

• traversing, by a computing system, a bounding volume hierarchy for a graphics scene that includes transform nodes at multiple levels;
• transforming, by the computing system, ray information based on reaching a given transform node during the traversal;
• determining, by the computing system, a list of pointers to transform nodes in a traversal path taken to reach a first primitive represented in the bounding volume hierarchy, including:
• utilizing at least two buffer circuits to store pointers for a candidate list and a committed list;
• storing candidate trail information that indicates, for a given position in the candidate list, which buffer of the buffer circuits stores a corresponding pointer;
• and
• storing committed trail information that indicates, for a given position in the committed list, which buffer of the buffer circuits stores a corresponding pointer.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions of a hardware description programming language stored thereon that, when processed by a computing system, program the computing system to generate a computer simulation model, wherein the model represents a hardware circuit that includes:

• ray intersection accelerator circuitry configured to traverse a bounding volume hierarchy that includes transform nodes at multiple levels;
• ray transform accelerator circuitry configured to transform ray information based on reaching a given transform node during the traversal;
• path tracking circuitry configured to determine a list of pointers to transform nodes in a traversal path taken to reach a first primitive represented in the bounding volume hierarchy, including to:
• utilize at least two buffer circuits to store pointers for a candidate list and a committed list;
• store candidate trail information that indicates, for a given position in the candidate list, which buffer of the buffer circuits stores a corresponding pointer;
• and
• store committed trail information that indicates, for a given position in the committed list, which buffer of the buffer circuits stores a corresponding pointer.