Rmip: fast tessellation-free gpu displacement ray tracing via inversion and oblong bounding simulation

A system comprising:

• a memory component;
• and
• a processing device coupled to the memory component, the processing device to perform operations comprising:
• accessing a two-dimensional (2D) displacement texture map defining a texture for at least a region of a surface of a three-dimensional (3D) virtual object of a 3D virtual scene;
• generating, based on the 2D displacement texture map, a rectangular minmax image pyramid (RMIP) data structure that defines displacement bounds for a plurality of rectangular areas in a texture space associated with the 2D displacement texture map;
• generating, based on the RMIP data structure and a triangle mesh structure that models a surface of a three-dimensional (3D) virtual object within 3D virtual scene, a displaced triangle mesh structure comprising one or more displaced surface bounding prisms, each of the one or more displaced surface bounding prisms displaced from a respective base triangle of the triangle mesh structure based on displacement bounds defined in the RMIP data structure for a rectangular area of the plurality of rectangular areas that corresponds to a location of the respective base triangle in a 3D virtual space defined by the 3D virtual scene;
• and
• performing, using the displaced triangle mesh structure, a ray tracing process for a ray associated with a pixel of a 2D image of the virtual scene, wherein performing the ray tracing process comprises:
• responsive to determining that the ray intersects a particular displaced surface bounding prism in the 3D virtual space, determining a location of an intersection of the ray in the 2D texture space.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing executable instructions, which when executed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform operations comprising:

• accessing a displaced triangle mesh structure comprising one or more displaced surface bounding prisms, each of the one or more displaced surface bounding prisms displaced from a respective base triangle of a triangle mesh structure that models a surface of a three-dimensional (3D) object depicted in a 3D virtual scene;
• performing, using the displaced triangle mesh structure, a ray tracing process for a ray associated with a pixel of a two-dimensional (2D) image of the virtual scene, wherein performing the ray tracing process comprises:
• responsive to determining that the ray intersects a particular displaced surface bounding prism in the 3D virtual scene, determining a location of an intersection of the ray in a 2D texture space defined by a 2D displacement texture model defining a texture for the surface of the 3D object, wherein determining the location of the intersection comprises:
• determining, based on the determined first endpoint and the determined second endpoint, an initial bounded area in the 2D texture space;
• subdividing, at a middle of the initial bounded area of the 2D texture space, the initial bounded area to generate a first subdivided bounded area and a second subdivided bounded area, wherein a path of the ray intersects the first subdivided bounded area prior to intersecting the second subdivided bounded area;
• based on the first subdivided bounded area and the second subdivided bounded area, generating a first subdivided axis-aligned bounding box (“AABB”) corresponding to the first subdivided bounded area and a second subdivided AABB corresponding to the second subdivided bounded area;
• determining that the ray intersects the first subdivided AABB at a first AABB endpoint and a second AABB endpoint;
• determining, based on the determined first AABB endpoint and the determined second AABB endpoint, an updated bounded area in the 2D texture space, wherein the updated bounded area has smaller dimensions than the initial bounded area;
• and
• determining, within the updated bounded area of the 2D texture space, the location.