Intersectable instance nodes for ray tracing acceleration structure nodes

A system for performing ray tracing operations, the system comprising:

• a memory configured to store a bounding volume hierarchy;
• and
• a processor configured to perform operations comprising:
• in a first iteration of a ray traversal technique, traversing to an instance node of the bounding volume hierarchy;
• in a second iteration of the ray traversal technique that is subsequent to the first iteration, transforming a ray based on an instance transform of the instance node to generate a transformed ray;
• and
• in the second iteration, performing a ray-box intersection test for box node data of the instance node based on the transformed ray.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

• in a first iteration of a ray traversal technique, traversing to an instance node of a bounding volume hierarchy;
• in a second iteration of the ray traversal technique that is subsequent to the first iteration, transforming a ray based on an instance transform of the instance node to generate a transformed ray;
• and
• in the second iteration, performing a ray-box intersection test for box node data of the instance node based on the transformed ray.