Abstract: A method and apparatus for efficiently constructing a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH). For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a primitive sampler to identify a representative subset of input primitives of a graphics scene; bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) builder hardware logic to construct an approximate BVH based on the representative subset of input primitives; hardware logic to insert input primitives not in the representative subset into leaves of the approximate BVH; and the BVH builder or a different BVH builder to construct a final BVH based on the primitives inserted into the leaves of the approximate BVH.