The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Dynamic Stackless Binary Tree Traversal

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

A fundamental part of many computer algorithms involves traversing a binary tree. One notable example is traversing a space-partitioning acceleration structure when computing ray-traced images. Traditionally, the traversal requires a stack to be temporarily stored for each ray, which results in both additional storage and memory-bandwidth usage. We present a novel algorithm for traversing a binary tree that does not require a stack and, unlike previous approaches, works with dynamic descent direction without restarting. Our algorithm will visit exactly the same sequence of nodes as a stack-based counterpart with extremely low computational overhead. No additional memory accesses are made for implicit binary trees. For sparse trees, parent links are used to backtrack the shortest path. We evaluate our algorithm using a ray tracer with a bounding volume hierarchy for which source code is supplied.

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

38-49

Publication/Series

Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques

Volume

2

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Williams College

Topic

  • Computer Science

Status

Published

Research group

  • Computer Graphics

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2331-7418