Abstract: An apparatus and method for merging primitives and coordinating between vertex and ray transformations on a shared transformation unit. For example, one embodiment of a graphics processor comprises: a queue comprising a plurality of entries; ordering circuitry/logic to order triangles front to back within the queue; pairing circuitry/logic to identify triangles in the queue sharing an edge and to merge the triangles sharing an edge to produce merged triangle pairs; and shared transformation circuitry to alternate between performing vertex transformations on vertices of the merged triangle pairs and to performing ray transformations on ray direction/origin data.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for context-aware compression. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: ray traversal/intersection circuitry to traverse rays through a hierarchical acceleration data structure to identify intersections between rays and primitives of a graphics scene; matrix compression circuitry/logic to compress hierarchical transformation matrices to generate compressed hierarchical transformation matrices by quantizing N-bit floating point data elements associated with child transforms of the hierarchical transformation matrices to variable-bit floating point numbers or integers comprising offsets from a parent transform of the child transform; and an instance processor to generate a plurality of instances of one or more base geometric objects in accordance with the compressed hierarchical transformation matrices.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for bottom-up BVH refit. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a hierarchical acceleration data structure generator to construct an acceleration data structure comprising a plurality of hierarchically arranged nodes; traversal hardware logic to traverse one or more rays through the acceleration data structure; intersection hardware logic to determine intersections between the one or more rays and one or more primitives within the hierarchical acceleration data structure; a node unit comprising circuitry and/or logic to perform refit operations on nodes of the hierarchical acceleration data structure, the refit operations to adjust spatial dimensions of one or more of the nodes; and an early termination evaluator to determine whether to proceed with refit operations or to terminate refit operations for a current node based on refit data associated with one or more child nodes of the current node.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for stack access throttling for synchronous ray tracing. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: ray tracing acceleration hardware to manage active ray tracing stack allocations to ensure that a size of the active ray tracing stack allocations remains within a threshold; and an execution unit to execute a thread to explicitly request a new ray tracing stack allocation from the ray tracing acceleration hardware, the ray tracing acceleration hardware to permit the new ray tracing stack allocation if the size of the active ray tracing stack allocations will remain within the threshold after permitting the new ray tracing stack allocation.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for a biased BVH traversal path. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: ray tracing traversal hardware logic to traverse a ray through nodes of a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH); and stack management hardware logic to push and pop entries on a traversal stack, each entry corresponding to a node of the BVH, wherein the ray tracing traversal hardware logic is to determine an order in which to push entries to the traversal stack based on both a first intersection value corresponding to a closest intersection point between the ray and a BVH node and a farthest intersection value between the ray and the BVH node. In addition, the ray traversal hardware logic may determine the order in which to push the entries to the traversal stack further based on a probability density value corresponding to a probability of a ray hitting geometry inside of the BVH.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for camera-aware BVH re-braiding. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: ray tracing acceleration hardware to be used to determine ray traversal results when traversing a ray through a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH); and BVH processing hardware logic to modify the BVH to reduce spatial overlap between one or more BVH subtrees based on a detected camera position to produce a modified BVH.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for prefetching node data. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: ray tracing acceleration hardware to manage active ray tracing stack allocations within a traversal stack; and stack management hardware logic to issue a prefetch operation comprising an indication of bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) node data to be prefetched and an indication of a cache level, wherein responsive to performing the prefetch operation, the BVH node data is to be prefetched to the indicated cache level.

Abstract: A cache streaming apparatus and method for machine learning. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a plurality of compute units to perform machine learning operations; a cache subsystem comprising a hierarchy of cache levels, at least some of the cache levels shared by two or more of the plurality of compute units; and data streaming hardware logic to stream machine learning data in and out of the cache subsystem based on the machine learning operations, the data streaming hardware logic to load data into the cache subsystem from memory before the data is needed by a first portion of the machine learning operations and to ensure that results produced by the first portion of machine learning operations are maintained in the cache subsystem until used by a second portion of the machine learning operations.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for tree structure data reduction. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a plurality of compute units; bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) processing logic to update a BVH responsive to changes associated with leaf nodes of the BVH, the BVH processing logic comprising: treelet generation logic to arrange nodes of the BVH into a plurality of treelets, the treelets including a plurality of bottom treelets and a tip treelet, each treelet having a number of nodes selected based on workgroup processing resources of the compute units; a dispatcher to dispatch workgroups to compute units to process the treelets, wherein a separate workgroup comprising a separate plurality of threads is dispatched to process each treelet.

Abstract: An apparatus and method to execute ray tracing instructions. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises execution circuitry to execute a dequantize instruction to convert a plurality of quantized data values to a plurality of dequantized data values, the dequantize instruction including a first source operand to identify a plurality of packed quantized data values in a source register and a destination operand to identify a destination register in which to store a plurality of packed dequantized data values, wherein the execution circuitry is to convert each packed quantized data value in the source register to a floating point value, to multiply the floating point value by a first value to generate a first product and to add the first product to a second value to generate a dequantized data value, and to store the dequantized data value in a packed data element location in the destination register.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for improving ray tracing efficiency. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: An apparatus comprising: a binary instrumentation engine to perform binary instrumentation of ray tracing shaders and to trace execution of the ray tracing shaders to generate execution metrics; call graph construction logic to construct a shader call graph based on the execution metrics; shader source mapping logic to map the shader call graph to shader source code to generate a source code map; efficiency analysis logic to determine inefficiencies in ray tracing shader execution based on the source code map; and optimization logic to identify optimization actions based on the inefficiencies.

Abstract: An apparatus and method to execute ray tracing instructions. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises execution circuitry to execute a dequantize instruction to convert a plurality of quantized data values to a plurality of dequantized data values, the dequantize instruction including a first source operand to identify a plurality of packed quantized data values in a source register and a destination operand to identify a destination register in which to store a plurality of packed dequantized data values, wherein the execution circuitry is to convert each packed quantized data value in the source register to a floating point value, to multiply the floating point value by a first value to generate a first product and to add the first product to a second value to generate a dequantized data value, and to store the dequantized data value in a packed data element location in the destination register.

Abstract: Real time ray tracing-based adaptive multi frequency shading. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprising: rasterization hardware logic to process input data for an image in a deferred rendering pass and to responsively update one or more graphics buffers with first data to be used in a subsequent rendering pass; ray tracing hardware logic to perform ray tracing operations using the first data to generate reflection ray data and to store the reflection ray data in a reflection buffer; and image rendering circuitry to perform texture sampling in a texture buffer based on the reflection ray data in the reflection buffer to render an output image.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for merging primitives and coordinating between vertex and ray transformations on a shared transformation unit. For example, one embodiment of a graphics processor comprises: a queue comprising a plurality of entries; ordering circuitry/logic to order triangles front to back within the queue; pairing circuitry/logic to identify triangles in the queue sharing an edge and to merge the triangles sharing an edge to produce merged triangle pairs; and shared transformation circuitry to alternate between performing vertex transformations on vertices of the merged triangle pairs and to performing ray transformations on ray direction/origin data.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for acceleration data structure refit. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a ray generator to generate a plurality of rays in a first graphics scene; a hierarchical acceleration data structure generator to construct an acceleration data structure comprising a plurality of hierarchically arranged nodes including inner nodes and leaf nodes stored in a memory in a depth-first search (DFS) order; traversal hardware logic to traverse one or more of the rays through the acceleration data structure; intersection hardware logic to determine intersections between the one or more rays and one or more primitives within the hierarchical acceleration data structure; a node refit unit comprising circuitry and/or logic to read consecutively through at least the inner nodes in the memory in reverse DFS order to perform a bottom-up refit operation on the hierarchical acceleration data structure.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for context-aware compression. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: ray traversal/intersection circuitry to traverse rays through a hierarchical acceleration data structure to identify intersections between rays and primitives of a graphics scene; matrix compression circuitry/logic to compress hierarchical transformation matrices to generate compressed hierarchical transformation matrices by quantizing N-bit floating point data elements associated with child transforms of the hierarchical transformation matrices to variable-bit floating point numbers or integers comprising offsets from a parent transform of the child transform; and an instance processor to generate a plurality of instances of one or more base geometric objects in accordance with the compressed hierarchical transformation matrices.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for merging primitives and coordinating between vertex and ray transformations on a shared transformation unit. For example, one embodiment of a graphics processor comprises: a queue comprising a plurality of entries; ordering circuitry/logic to order triangles front to back within the queue; pairing circuitry/logic to identify triangles in the queue sharing an edge and to merge the triangles sharing an edge to produce merged triangle pairs; and shared transformation circuitry to alternate between performing vertex transformations on vertices of the merged triangle pairs and to performing ray transformations on ray direction/origin data.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for context-aware compression. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: ray traversal/intersection circuitry to traverse rays through a hierarchical acceleration data structure to identify intersections between rays and primitives of a graphics scene; matrix compression circuitry/logic to compress hierarchical transformation matrices to generate compressed hierarchical transformation matrices by quantizing N-bit floating point data elements associated with child transforms of the hierarchical transformation matrices to variable-bit floating point numbers or integers comprising offsets from a parent transform of the child transform; and an instance processor to generate a plurality of instances of one or more base geometric objects in accordance with the compressed hierarchical transformation matrices.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for bottom-up BVH refit. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a hierarchical acceleration data structure generator to construct an acceleration data structure comprising a plurality of hierarchically arranged nodes; traversal hardware logic to traverse one or more rays through the acceleration data structure; intersection hardware logic to determine intersections between the one or more rays and one or more primitives within the hierarchical acceleration data structure; a node unit comprising circuitry and/or logic to perform refit operations on nodes of the hierarchical acceleration data structure, the refit operations to adjust spatial dimensions of one or more of the nodes; and an early termination evaluator to determine whether to proceed with refit operations or to terminate refit operations for a current node based on refit data associated with one or more child nodes of the current node.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for efficient graphics processing including ray tracing. For example, one embodiment of a graphics processor comprises: execution hardware logic to execute graphics commands and render images; an interface to couple functional units of the execution hardware logic to a tiled resource; and a tiled resource manager to manage access by the functional units to the tiled resource, a functional unit of the execution hardware logic to generate a request with a hash identifier (ID) to request access to a portion of the tiled resource, wherein the tiled resource manager is to determine whether a portion of the tiled resource identified by the hash ID exists, and if not, to allocate a new portion of the tiled resource and associate the new portion with the hash ID.