Patents by Inventor Levi OLIVER

Levi OLIVER has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20260030832
    Abstract: Techniques applicable to a ray tracing hardware accelerator for traversing a hierarchical acceleration structure with reduced round-trip communications with a processor are disclosed. The reduction of round-trip communications with a processor during traversal is achieved by having a visibility mask that defines visibility states for regions within a geometric primitive available to be accessed in the ray tracing hardware accelerator when a ray intersection is detected for the geometric primitive.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 8, 2025
    Publication date: January 29, 2026
    Inventors: Gregory A. MUTHLER, John BURGESS, Henry Packard MORETON, Yury URALSKY, Levi OLIVER, Magnus ANDERSSON, Johannes DELIGIANNIS
  • Patent number: 12475631
    Abstract: Techniques applicable to a ray tracing hardware accelerator for traversing a hierarchical acceleration structure with reduced round-trip communications with a processor are disclosed. The reduction of round-trip communications with a processor during traversal is achieved by having a visibility mask that defines visibility states for regions within a geometric primitive available to be accessed in the ray tracing hardware accelerator when a ray intersection is detected for the geometric primitive.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2022
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2025
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Gregory Muthler, John Burgess, Henry Packard Moreton, Yury Uralsky, Levi Oliver, Magnus Andersson, Johannes Deligiannis
  • Publication number: 20250046003
    Abstract: An alternate root tree or graph structure for ray and path tracing enables dynamic instancing build time decisions to split any number of geometry acceleration structures in a manner that is developer transparent, nearly memory storage neutral, and traversal efficient. The resulting traversals only need to partially traverse the acceleration structure, which improves efficiency. One example use reduces the number of false positive instance acceleration structure to geometry acceleration structure transitions for many spatially separated instances of the same geometry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 21, 2024
    Publication date: February 6, 2025
    Inventors: Gregory MUTHLER, John BURGESS, Magnus ANDERSSON, Timo VIITANEN, Levi OLIVER
  • Patent number: 12154214
    Abstract: An alternate root tree or graph structure for ray and path tracing enables dynamic instancing build time decisions to split any number of geometry acceleration structures in a manner that is developer transparent, nearly memory storage neutral, and traversal efficient. The resulting traversals only need to partially traverse the acceleration structure, which improves efficiency. One example use reduces the number of false positive instance acceleration structure to geometry acceleration structure transitions for many spatially separated instances of the same geometry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2022
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2024
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Gregory Muthler, John Burgess, Magnus Andersson, Timo Viitanen, Levi Oliver
  • Publication number: 20240087211
    Abstract: An alternate root tree or graph structure for ray and path tracing enables dynamic instancing build time decisions to split any number of geometry acceleration structures in a manner that is developer transparent, nearly memory storage neutral, and traversal efficient. The resulting traversals only need to partially traverse the acceleration structure, which improves efficiency. One example use reduces the number of false positive instance acceleration structure to geometry acceleration structure transitions for many spatially separated instances of the same geometry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 9, 2022
    Publication date: March 14, 2024
    Inventors: Greg MUTHLER, John BURGESS, Magnus ANDERSSON, Timo VIITANEN, Levi OLIVER
  • Publication number: 20230084570
    Abstract: Techniques applicable to a ray tracing hardware accelerator for traversing a hierarchical acceleration structure with reduced round-trip communications with a processor are disclosed. The reduction of round-trip communications with a processor during traversal is achieved by having a visibility mask that defines visibility states for regions within a geometric primitive available to be accessed in the ray tracing hardware accelerator when a ray intersection is detected for the geometric primitive.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 16, 2022
    Publication date: March 16, 2023
    Inventors: Gregory MUTHLER, John BURGESS, Henry Packard MORETON, Yury URALSKY, Levi OLIVER, Magnus ANDERSSON, Johannes DELIGIANNIS