Ray Tracing using Hierarchies of Slab Cut Balls

Abstract

In this paper, bounding volume trees of slab cut balls are evaluated and compared with other types of trees for ray tracing. A novel tree construction algorithm is proposed, which utilizes a relative orientation heuristic between parent and child nodes. Also, a fast intersection test between a ray and a slab cut ball is presented. Experimental comparisons to other commonly used enclosing shapes reveal that the slab cut ball is attractive. In particular, the slab cut ball outperforms the sphere in all tested scenes with speed-up factors between 1 and 4.