Method for continued bounding volume hierarchy traversal on intersection without shader intervention

A method implemented by a hardware-based traversal coprocessor coupled to a multiprocessor, the method comprising:

• storing, in memory, at least a portion of an acceleration data structure, wherein the acceleration data structure includes a plurality of hierarchical nodes, at least one of said plurality of hierarchical nodes identifies a plurality of primitives of a virtual scene;
• receive information about a ray;
• and
• in response to receiving the ray information,
• determining a plurality of intersected primitives, wherein each intersected primitive is a primitive in the plurality of primitives that is intersected by a ray;
• determine at least one primitive among the plurality of intersected primitives that will not affect visualization of the virtual scene;
• and
• report two or more of the intersected primitives while omitting to report the at least one primitive that is determined will not affect visualization of the virtual scene.

A hardware-based traversal coprocessor comprising a stack and a results queue, wherein the coprocessor is configured to:

• receive a query identifying a ray and a tree data structure to test for primitive intersections with the ray;
• retrieve, from memory outside of the traversal coprocessor, portions of the tree data structure, each portion identifying one or more bounding volumes of a hierarchy of bounding volumes identified in the tree data structure;
• determine smallest subdivisions of the hierarchy of bounding volumes which are intersected by the ray;
• push onto the stack a range of primitives identified in the smallest subdivision of the hierarchy of bounding volumes intersected by the ray;
• determine primitives in the range of primitives intersected by the ray;
• store intersection information for primitives in the range of primitives determined to be intersected by the ray in a result queue;
• and
• omit, from the result queue, intersection information for at least one of the primitives in the range of primitives determined to be intersected by the ray;
• and
• after the intersection information for the at least one primitive is omitted from the result queue, report intersection information stored in the result queue for plural primitives determined to be intersected by the ray.