CREMA: A Parallel Hardware Raytracing Machine

A raytracer calculates how a camera would observe a potentially complex scene consisting of numerous objects and light sources. If all the objects are modeled by n primitives, e.g., triangles, the runtime of a software raytracer scales at least logarithmically. This scaling behavior effectively imposes limitations on the scene´s complexity, its size, and the raytracer´s real-time capabilities. As an alternative, this paper proposes a parallel hardware raytracing machine. A prototypical implementation on a field-programmable gate array, as offered by markets today, validates that this machine achieves rendering in constant time, regardless of both the scene´s size and its complexity.