Evaluation of a BVH Construction Accelerator Architecture for High-Quality Visualization

The ever-increasing demands of computer graphics applications have motivated the evolution of computer graphics hardware over the last 20 years. Early commodity graphics hardware was largely based on fixed-function components offering little flexibility. The gradual replacement of fixed-function hardware with more general-purpose instruction processors, has enabled GPUs to deliver visual experiences more tailored to specific applications. This trend has culminated in modern GPUs essentially being programmable stream processors, capable of supporting a wide variety of applications in and outside of computer graphics. However, the growing concern of power efficiency in modern processors, coupled with an increasing demand for supporting next-generation graphics pipelines, has re-invigorated the debate on the use of fixed-function accelerators in these platforms. In this paper, we conduct a study of a heterogeneous, system-on-chip solution for the construction of a highly important data structure for computer graphics: the bounding volume hierarchy. This design incorporates conventional CPU cores alongside a fixed-function accelerator prototyped on a reconfigurable logic fabric. Our study supports earlier, simulation-only studies which argue for the introduction of this class of accelerator in future graphics processors.