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Nvidia patents hardware to speed up motion blur in ray tracing

Patent drawing
Patent drawing from the official filing.

Nvidia describes a hardware design that helps computers calculate how light hits moving objects more efficiently. Instead of checking every frame separately, the chip interpolates the object's position between two known states to match the specific time a light ray hits it. This allows the system to process moving shapes at a speed similar to how it handles static objects.

Why it mattersThis could make video games and visual effects look smoother by reducing the lag or stutter often seen when objects move quickly in realistic lighting simulations.

In the filing’s own words

Ray tracing hardware accelerators supporting motion blur and moving/deforming geometry are disclosed. For example, dynamic objects in an acceleration data structure are encoded with temporal and spatial information. The hardware includes circuitry that test ray intersections against moving/deforming geometry by applying such temporal and spatial information. Such circuitry accelerates the visibility sampling of moving geometry, including rigid body motion and object deformation, and its associated moving bounding volumes to a performance similar to that of the visibility sampling of static geometry.

What exactly they claim (claim 1)

1. A method of operating ray tracing circuitry comprising a communications circuit, a memory access circuit, an interpolation circuit, and a bounding volume intersection testing circuit, the method comprising: receiving with the communications circuit, ray data specifying a ray path and a ray timing; accessing, with the memory access circuit, a stored motion node specifying a first bounding volume bounding a geometric primitive first position and/or shape and a second bounding volume bounding the geometric primitive second position and/or shape; temporally interpolating, with the interpolation circuit at the specified ray timing, an intermediate bounding volume that is spatially intermediate the first bounding volume and the second bounding volume; and testing, with the bounding volume intersection testing circuit, whether the ray path intersects the intermediate bounding volume.

Facts

Company
Nvidia (NVIDIA Corporation)
Official title
Ray tracing hardware acceleration for supporting motion blur and moving/deforming geometry
Patent number
US12762784B2
Application number
18922644
Filed
Oct 22, 2024
Granted
Oct 13, 2026
Inventors
2
Claims
35

Classified under

G06T 15/06 Physics & computingG06F 9/5027 Physics & computingG06T 3/4007 Physics & computingG06T 9/00 Physics & computingG06T 15/08 Physics & computingG06T 17/10 Physics & computing

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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.