Hardware Acceleration for Motion Blur with Ray Tracing

An apparatus, comprising:

• ray intersection accelerator circuitry configured to:
• determine a quantized ray time value for a ray;
• and
• perform traversal operations for an acceleration data structure (ADS) that includes hierarchical bounding volumes, wherein the ADS includes a first node that specifies:
• first coordinates of a bounding volume at a first motion blur time;
• and
• second coordinates of the bounding volume at a second motion blur time;
• wherein the ray intersection accelerator circuitry includes:
• interpolation circuitry configured to operate on the first coordinates, the second coordinates, and the quantized ray time value to generate interpolated coordinates for the bounding volume;
• and
• box test circuitry configured to determine whether the ray intersected the bounding volume based on the interpolated coordinates and coordinates of the ray.

A method, comprising:

• determine, by a computing system, a quantized ray time interval for a ray;
• and
• performing, by the computing system, traversal operations for an acceleration data structure (ADS) that includes hierarchical bounding volumes, wherein the ADS includes a first node that specifies:
• first coordinates of a bounding volume at a first motion blur time;
• and
• second coordinates of the bounding volume at a second motion blur time;
• operating, by the computing system, on the first coordinates, the second coordinates, and the quantized ray time interval to generate interpolated coordinates for the bounding volume;
• and
• determining, by the computing system, whether the ray intersected the bounding volume based on the interpolated coordinates and coordinates of the ray.

A method, comprising:

• generating, by a computing system, an acceleration data structure (ADS) that includes hierarchical bounding volumes for a graphics scene;
• wherein:
• the ADS includes a first node that is a spacetime node and a second node that is a spatial node;
• the spacetime node includes:
• first coordinates of a first bounding volume at a first motion blur time;
• and
• second coordinates of the first bounding volume at a second motion blur time;
• the spatial node includes coordinates of a second bounding volume for a single point in time;
• the first node includes an indication that the first node is a spacetime node;
• and
• the second node includes an indication the second node is a spatial node that does not include coordinates for its bounding volumes at different times.