{"schema_version":"1.0","canonical_url":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-11488343","patent":{"patent_number":"US-11488343","title":"Mechanism for supporting discard functionality in a ray tracing context","assignee":null,"inventors":[],"filing_date":"2021-02-03T00:00:00.000Z","publication_date":"2022-11-01T00:00:00.000Z","cpc_codes":["G06T","G06T","G06T"],"num_claims":20,"abstract":"Described herein is a technique for performing ray tracing. According to this technique, instead of executing intersection and/or any hit shaders during traversal of an acceleration structure to determine the closest hit for a ray, an acceleration structure is fully traversed in an invocation of a shader program, and the closest intersection with a triangle is recorded in a data structure associated with the material of the triangle. Later, a scheduler launches waves by grouping together multiple data items associated with the same material. The rays processed by that wave are processed with a continuation ray, rather than the full original ray. A continuation ray starts from the previous point of intersection and extends in the direction of the original ray. These steps help counter divergence that would occur if a single shader program that inlined the intersection and any hit shaders were executed."},"analysis":{"summary":null,"layman_explanation":null,"technical_analysis":null,"business_analysis":null,"faqs":null,"topics":[],"tech_cluster":null},"seo":{"title":"Mechanism for supporting discard functionality in a ray tracing context","description":"Described herein is a technique for performing ray tracing. According to this technique, instead of executing intersection and/or any hit shaders during traversal of an acceleration structure to deter","keywords":[]},"attribution":{"source":"Patentable","source_url":"https://patentable.app","canonical_url":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-11488343","license":"CC-BY-4.0-like","license_terms":"AI-generated analysis on this page (summary, layman_explanation, technical_analysis, business_analysis, faqs) may be reused with attribution and a visible link back to the canonical URL above. Patent abstracts, claims, and bibliographic data are USPTO public domain.","required_link":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-11488343","citation_suggestion":"Patentable. \"Mechanism for supporting discard functionality in a ray tracing context\" (US-11488343). https://patentable.app/patents/US-11488343","copyright_holder":"Nomic Interactive Technology LLC"},"links":{"html":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-11488343","json":"https://patentable.app/api/llm-context/US-11488343","site":"https://patentable.app","llms_txt":"https://patentable.app/llms.txt"},"generated_at":"2026-05-30T20:58:42.153Z"}