On Demand Geometry and Acceleration Structure Creation

A method of geometry processing for 3-D rendering in a computer graphics system, comprising:

• producing geometric primitives located in a 3-D scene from source geometry data;
• defining a set of tile object lists, wherein each tile object tile contains data indicating which source geometry from the set of source geometry results in geometric primitives that are within a boundary of a respective tile of pixels of a 2-D image;
• and
• producing an acceleration structure comprising a graph of elements, each defining a respective volume in the 3-D scene;
• rendering the 2-D image from the scene by using the tile object lists to identify a visible surface at each pixel of the 2-D image, and
• tracing rays in the 3-D scene, using the acceleration structure, from the identified visible surfaces to identify a primitive intersected by each of the rays, if any, and producing information contributing to a final shade for the visible surface at each pixel.

A method of 3-D geometry processing for graphics rendering in a computer graphics system, comprising:

• defining a respective set of modification processes to be performed on portions of source geometry, in order to produce final geometry located in respective portions of a 3-D scene;
• producing a respective element of an acceleration structure that bounds each of the portions of the 3-D scene and associating, with the element, the respective set of modification processes performed in order to produce final within that element;
• defining a set of tile object lists, each tile object list identifying source geometry and a respective set of modification processes to be performed on the identified source geometry to produce final geometry within a tile of pixels within a 2-D image to be rendered from the 3-D scene;
• and
• rendering the 2-D image by identifying visible surfaces for pixels within the 2-D image on a tile by tile basis, wherein the rendering comprises
• identifying source geometry from the tile object list for each tile, and
• performing the set of modification processes on the source geometry to produce final geometry,
• wherein a visible surface for each pixel in that tile is identified based on the produced final geometry, and wherein to complete the rendering for a group of the pixels, rays are emitted from the visible surface for pixels and traversed in the 3-D scene, and
• traversing the rays in the 3-D scene.

A method of 3-D geometry processing for graphics rendering in a computer graphics system, comprising:

• producing final geometry from source geometry by applying one or more geometry modification processes to the source geometry, the producing characterized by a plurality of discrete productions, each producing final geometry limited to a subset of final geometry located in a 3-D scene;
• and
• scheduling the plurality of discrete productions of the final geometry by collecting requests for particular sub-sets of final geometry into groups and based on a scheduling criteria, and
• relatively ordering the plurality of discrete productions according to the scheduling criteria.