[comp.graphics] Hardware acceleration of ray tracing

rick@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Rick Spanbauer) (04/16/91)

Can anyone provide references to papers describing hardware
acceleration techniques for ray tracing?  I've already looked
through Glassners ray tracing book - most of the references
are fairly old, eg 1983-1987.  I am particularly interested
in any vlsi implementations of ray tracing support hardware.

				Thanks,

				Rick Spanbauer

bcorrie@csr (Brian Corrie) (04/16/91)

rick@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Rick Spanbauer) writes:
>Can anyone provide references to papers describing hardware
>acceleration techniques for ray tracing?  I've already looked
>through Glassners ray tracing book - most of the references
>are fairly old, eg 1983-1987.  I am particularly interested
>in any vlsi implementations of ray tracing support hardware.
>				Thanks,
>				Rick Spanbauer

The best reference I have seen is the ACM SIGGRAPH course notes from
the Boston conference in 1989. It is course 16, titled ``Parallel
Processing and Advanced Architectures in Computer Graphics.''
Unfortuantely, they are not generally available in libraries, and once
they run out of conference copies, thats it as far as I know. Talk to
someone at ACM SIGGRAPH for order info and more details. I don't have
an address handy.

It covers lots of stuff, from scanline rendering to radiosity, and has
several good tidbits on Parallel Architectures for ray tracing. It talks
about the Meiko Computing Surface, the Connection Machine, and the
AT&T Pixel Machine, as well as others. Mostly just brief blurbs, but the
appropriate references are there as well.

For the AT&T Pixel Machine, check out the proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH 89,
pages 69-79.

	B
--
                  Brian Corrie (bcorrie@csr.uvic.ca)
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature,
volume, humidity and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well
pleases. Sounds like some of the code I have written......  8-)

john@sol.cs.wmich.edu (John Kapenga) (04/16/91)

see IEEE CG & A, March 1987
A VLSI chip for ray tracing bicubic patches.

(also abstracts from hypercube - II on using the chip 
in a parallel system)

john

speer@cs.Colorado.EDU (Rick Speer) (04/16/91)

Rick Spanbauer (rick@sbcs.sunysb.edu) recently writes,

> Can anyone provide references to papers describing hardware
> acceleration techniques for ray tracing?  I've already looked
> through Glassners ray tracing book - most of the references
> are fairly old, eg 1983-1987.  I am particularly interested
> in any vlsi implementations of ray tracing support hardware.

Here's a possibly more complete list, containing at least a number
of more recent references. Hope it helps.

Rick

-----------------------------------------------------------

1. "Ray Tracing on the SCRIP Machine",  by  R.  Popovic,  p.
387-96 in the Proceedings of the International Conference on
Parallel Computing '89, North-Holland, 1990.

2. "A VLSI chip for ray  tracing  bicubic  patches",  by  K.
Bouatouch,  Y.  Saouter  and  J.  C.  Candela,  p. 107-24 in
Proceedings of Eurographics '89, W. Hansmann, F. R. A.  Hop-
good and W. Strasser, Eds., Elsevier / North-Holland, 1989.

3. "Design for a  Real-Time  High-Quality  Volume  Rendering
Workstation",  by M. Levoy, p. 85-92 in Chapel Hill Workshop
on Volume Visualization, ACM  /  Univ.  of  North  Carolina,
1989.

4. "The Ray-Casting Machine", by G. Kedem and J.  L.  Ellis,
p.  378-401  in  Parallel Processing for Computer Vision and
Display, P. M. Dew, T. R. Heywood and R. A. Earnshaw,  Eds.,
Addison-Wesley, 1989.  [Also see Ref. #10 below.]

5. "Multiprocessor Experiments for High-Speed Ray  Tracing",
by S. Gaudet, R. Hobson, P. Chilka and T. Calvert, p. 151-79
in ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 7 no. 3 (July 1988).

6. "Towards a  Z-Buffer  and  Ray-Tracing  Multimode  System
Based on Parallel Architecture and VLSI Chips", by P. Leray,
p. 141-5 in Advances in Computer  Graphics  Hardware  I,  W.
Strasser, Ed., Springer-Verlag, 1987.

7. "The Feasibility of a VLSI Chip for Ray  Tracing  Bicubic
Patches", by R. Pulleyblank and J. Kapenga, p. 33-44 in IEEE
Computer Graphics and  Applications  vol.  7  no.  3  (March
1987).  [Also see the next ref.]

8. "A VLSI Chip for Ray Tracing Bicubic Patches", by R. Pul-
leyblank  and  J. Kapenga, p. 125-40 in Advances in Computer
Graphics Hardware I W. Strasser, Ed., Springer-Verlag, 1987.

9. "Ray Tracing  Rational  B-Spline  Patches  in  VLSI",  by
Bengt-Olaf  Schneider,  p.  47-63  in  Advances  in Computer
Graphics Hardware II, 1987.

10. "The Raycasting Machine" by G. Kedem and  J.  Ellis,  p.
533-38 in the Proceedings of the International Conference on
Computer Design, IEEE, 1984.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Rick Speer                 | "Ask not what your planet can do for you,  |
| speer@cs.colorado.edu      |  ask what you can do for your planet." (c) |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

wilson@cs.ucf.edu (tom wilson) (04/18/91)

In article <bcorrie.671746332@csr> bcorrie@csr (Brian  Corrie) writes:
>It covers lots of stuff, from scanline rendering to radiosity, and has
>several good tidbits on Parallel Architectures for ray tracing. It talks
>about the Meiko Computing Surface, the Connection Machine, and the
>AT&T Pixel Machine, as well as others. Mostly just brief blurbs, but the
>appropriate references are there as well.

You may want to read the section on ray tracing hardware/machines in my
collection of ray tracing abstracts. Not only does it have the reference that
you need (also Rick Speer gave several in a separate article), but it also has
the abstract. This will help you determine whether or not the article is what
you want before you try to track it down. Many of the ones mentioned above are
in it. You can find the collection at several ftp sites:

weedeater.math.yale.edu (130.132.23.17) in directory pub/Papers
karazm.math.uh.edu (132.170.108.2) in directory pub/Graphics
iear.arts.rpi.edu (128.113.6.10) in directory pub/graphics/ray
gondwana.ecr.mu.oz.au (128.250.1.63) in directory pub/rtabs
maeglin.mt.luth.se (130.240.0.25) in directory graphics/raytracing/Doc

Tom