Shader binding management in ray tracing

US11727632B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• NVIDIA Corporation · US

Inventors

• Martin Stich · Memmingen, DE
• Ignacio Llamas · Palo Alto, US
• Steven Parker · Draper, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 15, 2021
• Grant date: Aug 15, 2023
• Expiry date: Jul 15, 2041

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06T15/06
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

In various examples, shader bindings may be recorded in a shader binding table that includes shader records. Geometry of a 3D scene may be instantiated using object instances, and each may be associated with a respective set of the shader records using a location identifier of the set of shader records in memory. The set of shader records may represent shader bindings for an object instance under various predefined conditions. One or more of these predefined conditions may be implicit in the way the shader records are arranged in memory (e.g., indexed by ray type, by sub-geometry, etc.). For example, a section selector value (e.g., a section index) may be computed to locate and select a shader record based at least in part on a result of a ray tracing query (e.g., what sub-geometry was hit, what ray type was traced, etc.).