Abstract: Some aspects of the disclosure include systems and methods for grouping rays into sets according to their directions. In some cases, the rays of the directional sets may then be organized into a hierarchy according to their origins and bounding cones are generated for the hierarchy nodes. The resulting bounding cone hierarchy may be intersected with a bounding volume hierarchy or other scene hierarchy.

Abstract: A method is provided for distributed element rendering with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity requiring global illumination. A persistent centralized scheduler receives shading queries that are added to a request queue, determines an assignment of the request queue to hardware resources based on a resource map, and processes the request queue according to the assignment to render frames of one or more scenes. The resource map may be built by the scheduler and indicates local scene geometry cached for each of the hardware resources. By generating a full set of camera rays at each hardware resource, global illumination shading and other rendering can proceed independently against local geometry caches for high parallelism. Redundant computations are reduced through the scheduler, which may cache frequently requested rendering results including tessellation, shading, and level of detail.

Abstract: A method is provided for streaming light propagation with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity requiring art directed global illumination. By attaching a data recording shader or equivalent functionality to any tracing based renderer that can provide multi-pass global illumination, the complete set of light bounce propagation records and the set of emissive samples for a particular rendering can be recorded to memory or disk. A user may edit the emissive samples to adjust the lighting environment, including modifying light source color and intensity and even moving and adding new emissive samples. To relight the scene, the edited emissive samples are processed through the propagation records using a streaming multiply-and-add operation amenable to high levels of parallelization, avoiding a costly re-rendering of the scene and providing a final quality result in interactive time.

Abstract: A method is provided for a streaming hierarchy traversal renderer with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity that cannot fit in memory. The renderer organizes scene geometry into a spatial hierarchy, generates directional queries to be traced in the spatial hierarchy, performs a streaming hierarchy traversal over the directional queries, and uses the results of the directional queries to shade or render the scene. The traversal performs a single pass over the directional queries for splitting into one child stream of directional queries for each child node at each scene node in the hierarchy. A prioritized traversal of the hierarchy may also be carried out using various cost-metrics for optimized parallelism. The rendering may also bounce the directional queries to provide multi-pass global illumination.

Abstract: A method is provided for integration cone tracing with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity requiring global illumination. Instead of using a conventional noise prone ray tracer, cones are intersected with a scene bounding hierarchy to determine intersecting scene geometry, and integration results are computed by directional sampling within the cones. As a result, the working data set may be reduced as the rendering may begin with a smaller set of cones as compared to the large number of rays required for acceptable filtering in a conventional ray tracer. Furthermore, by refining the cones during the rendering only on an as-needed basis according to an acceptable noise threshold and by sharing secondary cone bounces among primary cones, the processing workload and data set requirements may be kept to a reasonable level even for multiple global illumination passes.

Abstract: A linear actuator includes a housing and a cover tube that is supported relative to the housing. A nut engages the cover tube so as to prevent rotation of the nut relative to the cover tube. A lead screw rotatably engages the nut, wherein rotation of the lead screw causes the nut to travel along the lead screw.

Abstract: An anti-malware program monitors the behavior of a system after a system restore to determine the likelihood of a hidden infection of malicious code still existing after the system restore. The anti-malware program observes the dynamic behavior of the system by monitoring conditions that are likely to signify the possibility of an infection thereby necessitating the need to initiate anti-malware detection. The anti-malware program may observe the restoration history, system settings, malware infection history, to determine the likelihood of an existing hidden infection after a system restore.

Abstract: A vertical can be a series of computer-executable instructions that, in response to an incident, collect information regarding that incident and transmit the information for analysis and possible helpful feedback to the user. A general purpose vertical can address types of incidents, such as crashes or hangs, across a variety of applications, while a custom vertical can be written to address application-specific incidents. Verticals can access underlying support mechanisms through an infrastructure, which can also enable applications to request that additional data be collected by the verticals, and set other preferences. Once the data is collected and transmitted, a vertical may receive feedback, that can be a request for additional information or feedback to the user. The feedback to the user can attempt to identify the incident and aid the user in recovering from it and avoiding it in the future.

Abstract: A modular panel system for the purpose of partitioning spaces. The modular panel system includes at least one panel, and a plurality of panel supports. Each panel support includes a member, a cap at a first end, a base at a second end, and a panel retaining arrangement. The base is shaped to support the member in a free-standing upright position. The panel retaining arrangement serves to permit the attachment and removal of an appropriately configured edge of a vertically oriented panel between the cap and the base without the use of tools, and the rotational movement of the panel about an axis defined by the edge.