Ray Queries with Wide Object Isolation and the DE-Tree

This article introduces techniques for improving the performance of ray query data structures. The SMI (spatial median plus isolation) algorithm and the DE-tree (dual extent tree) are introduced and used to render all standard procedural database scenes. The ray-tracing experiments suggest that the SMI-created DE-tree features linear space, fast build and search times (on average proportional to NlogN and logN, respectively) and reduced ray-primitive intersection tests. The combined performance is an improvement over existing data structures.