Temporal and spatial coherent ray tracing for rendering scenes with sampled and geometry data

A method for tracing rays through graphical data, comprising the steps of:

• partitioning the graphical data into a plurality of blocks according to a scheduling grid;
• generating, for each block, a ray queue, each entry in the ray queue representing a ray to be traced through the block;
• and
• ordering, temporally and spatially, the ray queues in a list for processing, wherein the plurality of blocks are stored in a physical, multi-level cache according to the order of the list;
• wherein the ordering is performed by a scheduler;
• wherein the physical, multilevel cache includes a third level of memory connected to a central processing unit, the third level of memory storing the graphical data, a second level of memory connected to the central processing unit by a system bus, the second level of memory for storing a sub-set of the plurality of blocks, and a first level of memory connected to the second level of memory by a memory bus, the scheduler storing an ordered list of blocks in the first level memory.