# US 2026/0087724 A1 · Techniques for traversing data employed in ray tracing

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- Number: US 2026/0087724 A1
- Document ID: US20260087724A1
- Status: Published application
- Kind: A1
- Application number: 19/403,895
- Filed: 2025-11-30
- Published: 2026-03-26
- Earliest claimed: 2020-06-10
- Assignees: NVIDIA Corporation
- Applicants: NVIDIA Corporation
- Inventors: Gregory Muthler; John Burgess
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20260087724A1

## CPC

- G06T 15/06: Ray-tracing
- A61K 31/14: Quaternary ammonium compounds, e.g. edrophonium, choline (betaines A61K31/205)
- A61K 31/19: Carboxylic acids, e.g. valproic acid (salicylic acid A61K31/60)
- A61K 31/197: the amino and the carboxyl groups being attached to the same acyclic carbon chain, e.g. gamma-aminobutyric acid [GABA], beta-alanine, epsilon-aminocaproic acid or pantothenic acid (carnitine A61K31/205)
- A61K 31/198: Alpha-amino acids, e.g. alanine or edetic acid [EDTA] (betaine A61K31/205; proline A61K31/401; tryptophan A61K31/405; histidine A61K31/4172; peptides not degraded to individual amino acids A61K38/00)
- A61K 31/205: Amine addition salts of organic acids; Inner quaternary ammonium salts, e.g. betaine, carnitine
- A61K 31/385: having two or more sulfur atoms in the same ring
- A61K 31/4188: condensed with other heterocyclic ring systems, e.g. biotin, sorbinil
- A61K 31/4415: Pyridoxine, i.e. Vitamin B6 (pyridoxal phosphate A61K31/675)
- A61K 31/51: Thiamines, e.g. vitamin B1
- A61K 31/519: ortho- or peri-condensed with heterocyclic rings
- A61K 31/525: Isoalloxazines, e.g. riboflavins, vitamin B2
- A61K 31/714: Cobalamins, e.g. cyanocobalamin, i.e. vitamin B12
- G06N 3/02: Neural networks
- G06T 15/005: {General purpose rendering architectures}
- G06T: IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL
- A61K: PREPARATIONS FOR MEDICAL, DENTAL OR TOILETRY PURPOSES (devices or methods specially adapted for bringing pharmaceutical products into particular physical or administering forms A61J3/00; chemical aspects of, or use of materials for deodorisation of air, for disinfection or sterilisation, or for bandages, dressings, absorbent pads or surgical articles A61L; soap compositions C11D)
- G06N: COMPUTING ARRANGEMENTS BASED ON SPECIFIC COMPUTATIONAL MODELS

## Abstract

Ray tracing hardware accelerators supporting multiple specifiers for controlling the traversal of a ray tracing acceleration data structure are disclosed. For example, traversal efficiency and complex ray tracing effects can be achieved by specifying traversals through such data structures using both programmable ray operations and explicit node masking. The explicit node masking utilizes dedicated fields in the ray and in nodes of the acceleration data structure to control traversals. Ray operations, however, are programmable per ray using opcodes and additional parameters to control traversals. Traversal efficiency is improved by enabling more aggressive culling of parts of the data structure based on the combination of explicit node masking and programmable ray operations. More complex ray tracing effects are enabled by providing for dynamic selection of nodes based on individual ray characteristics.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A ray tracing acceleration hardware device, comprising:
ray storage configured to store geometric information for a ray;
acceleration data structure storage configured to store acceleration data structure nodes;
traversal circuitry connected to the ray storage and the acceleration data structure storage, the traversal circuitry configured to
(a) traverse the acceleration data structure nodes,
(b) perform a first test of the ray against the acceleration data structure nodes, and
(c) perform a second test of the ray against the acceleration data structure nodes, wherein neither the first test nor the second test is an intersection test; and
intersection testing circuitry connected to the traversal circuitry and configured to perform an intersection test of the ray against the acceleration data structure nodes, and return a result of the intersection test to a processor connected to the ray tracing acceleration hardware device.