Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendments and Remarks
Applicant's arguments filed 5/25/26 have been fully considered as follows:
Applicant argues:
In this respect, the claimed subject matter relates to a ray tracing process that uses a ray tracing acceleration data structure, such as a bounding volume hierarchy ("BVH"), that comprises a plurality of nodes, including at least one parent node that is associated with a respective set of plural child nodes, with the parent node volume encompassing the volumes of its respective child nodes.
(This is also the case in both Luebke and Muthler.)
The claimed subject matter specifies, particularly, for a parent node of the a ray tracing acceleration data structure, how a set of node volume data indicative of the respective volumes of the child nodes associated with that parent node are stored. As noted above, this is done by storing, for each child node for which volume data is stored, a respective set of base co-ordinate values. There is also stored a set of one or more modifier values that are to be applied to the respective base co-ordinate values to determine the associated volumes for the child nodes.
An example of this is shown in Fig. 13 of the application where the data structure stores respective scaling factors for each of the x,y,z axes. This approach helps reduce the amount of data required to store the child node volumes. This can in turn facilitate more efficient cache usage and/or reduce cache bandwidth. See, e.g., paragraphs [0219]-[0230] of the published application in this regard.
(Remarks, Page 9).
Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive because Muthler considers associating coordinates with different subtrees:
“According to some embodiments, the subtree rooted at N7 may represent a set of bounding volumes or BVH that is defined in a different coordinate space than the bounding volumes corresponding to nodes N1-N3. When bounding volume N7 is in a different coordinate space from its parent bounding volume N3, an instance node N7′ which provides the ray transformation necessary to traverse the subtree rooted at N7, may connect the rest of the tree to the subtree rooted at N7. Instance node N7′ connects the bounding volume or BVH corresponding to nodes N1-N3, with the bounding volumes or BVH corresponding to nodes N7 etc. by defining the transformation from the coordinate space of N1-N3 (e.g., world space) to the coordinate space of N7 etc. (e.g., object space).”
(Muthler, ¶ 117).
Applicant argues:
The Action acknowledges that Luebke does not teach this claimed subject matter, and turns towards Muthler to address this deficiency. However, Muthler also does not teach these features.
The Action refers particularly to Muthler, paragraph 56 as disclosed this. In this passage Muthler teaches the use of "instance" nodes. As described in paragraph 56 of Muthler, objects that are replicated many times in a scene can be represented in the scene as instance nodes which associate a bounding box and leaf node in a world space BVH with a transformation that can be applied to the world-space ray to transform the ray into a different, object coordinate space. The instance nodes in Muthler, as taught in paragraph 56, are thus used to transform rays between coordinate systems. This is different than what is defined in the claimed subject matter.
First, it is noted that the instance nodes in Muthler are leaf nodes. As discussed in Muthler, paragraph 54, the leaf nodes are the smallest subdivisions of the BVH.
In contrast, a parent node is, by definition, a non-leaf node, i.e. since it can be (and is) further subdivided into child volumes.
That is, as claimed, a "parent" node is associated with a respective set of plural child nodes, with the parent node volume encompassing the volumes of its respective child nodes. This is consistent with the definition in paragraph [0033] of the present application, which refers to non- leaf nodes. That is, the terms "parent" and "non-leaf' (or internal) are used interchangeably to refer to these nodes.
The instance nodes mentioned in paragraph 56 of Muthler are not therefore parent nodes, as claimed.
Correspondingly, the instance nodes in Muthler do not (and do not need to) store any data indicative of respective child node volumes.
(Remarks, Page 10).
Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive because N7 contains additional child nodes which are not leaf nodes:
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“Instance node N7′ connects the bounding volume or BVH corresponding to nodes N1-N3, with the bounding volumes or BVH corresponding to nodes N7 etc. by defining the transformation from the coordinate space of N1-N3 (e.g., world space) to the coordinate space of N7 etc. (e.g., object space).”
(Muthler, Fig. 8B; ¶ 117)
Applicant argues:
Again, this is because the instance nodes in Muthler are the smallest subdivisions of the BVH, and does not therefore have any associate child nodes in the world space BVH for which it would need to store any child volumes for.
Accordingly, paragraph 56 of Muthler does not teach "obtaining for a parent node to be tested a set of node volume data indicative of respective volumes of child nodes associated with the parent node", let alone to do so in the particular manner claimed, i.e. by:
the node volume data comprising, for each child node for which volume data is stored, a respective set of base co-ordinate values, and the node volume data further comprising a set of one or more modifier values that are to be applied to the respective base co-ordinate values for the child nodes in order to determine an associated volume for the child node.
For instance, even disregarding that Muthler does not teach to store any data indicative of respective child node volumes, the data that is stored in Muthler does not comprise a set of base coordinate values and modifier values to be applied to those base coordinate values to determine an associated volume.
Instead, in Muthler, the instance node is associated with a transformation and a pointer. Neither of these, alone or when considered together, correspond to a set of base coordinate values and modifier values to be applied to those base coordinate values to determine an associated volume, as claimed (let alone a child node volume, as discussed above).
(Remarks, Page 11).
Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive because transformations would be impossible without stored data. Further, Muthler discloses:
“After the complet information needed for a requested traversal step is available in the complet cache 752, the ray-complet test block 710 determines bounding volumes intersected by the ray. In performing this test, the ray may be transformed from the coordinate space of the bounding volume hierarchy to a coordinate space defined relative to a complet. The ray is tested against the bounding boxes associated with the child nodes of the complet. In the example non-limiting embodiment, the ray is not tested against the complet's own bounding box because (1) the TTU 700 previously tested the ray against a similar bounding box when it tested the parent bounding box child that referenced this complet, and (2) a purpose of the complet bounding box is to define a local coordinate system within which the child bounding boxes can be expressed in compressed form.”
(Muthler, ¶ 127).
Applicant argues:
As taught by Muthler, paragraph 56, the transformation is applied to a ray to transform the ray into a different coordinate space. This transformation is therefore neither a set of base coordinate values itself, nor is it a modifier value that is applied to a set of base coordinate values to determine an associated volume.
Similarly, the pointer to the object space BVH simply identifies another BVH. Again, this is neither a set of base coordinate values itself, nor is it a modifier value that is applied to a set of base coordinate values to determine an associated volume (for a child node).
Therefore, Muthler does not teach the features identified as being missing from Luebke, as Muthler teaches to store different data, for a different type of node (i.e. a leaf node, rather than a parent node), and in a different manner.
(Remarks, Page 11).
Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive because each bounding volume may be associated with a coordinate system (“coordinate space of N1-N3 (e.g., world space) to the coordinate space of N7 etc. (e.g., object space).””) and the bounding volumes are nested (“In FIG. 8A, bounding volume N1 is subdivided into bounding volumes N2 and N3. Children nodes N2 and N3 of the tree structure of FIG. 8B correspond to and represent the bounding volumes N2 and N3 shown in FIG. 8A.”)
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Applicant argues:
One of ordinary skill of the art could not therefore arrive at the claimed subject matter from any reasonable combination of these documents.
(Remarks, Page 11).
Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive because one of ordinary skill in the art would have considered association with a base coordinate system to avoid “replicating the object space BVH data multiple times in world space, saving memory and associated memory accesses. The instance transform increases efficiency by transforming the ray into object space instead of requiring the geometry or the bounding volume hierarchy to be transformed into world (ray) space and is also compatible with additional, conventional rasterization processes that graphics processing performs to visualize the primitives.”(Muthler, ¶ 56).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Use of indicates a limitation is not explicitly disclosed by the reference alone.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luebke (US 2014/0168228) in view of Muthler (US 2020/0050550)
Claim 1
Examiner’s Interpretation:
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claim Mapping:
Luebke discloses a method of accessing node volume data for use by a graphics processor when rendering a frame that represents a view of a scene comprising one or more objects using a ray tracing process (Luebke, ¶ 2: “The present invention generally relates to three-dimensional (3D) graphics processing, and, more particularly, to fine-grained traversal for ray tracing.”),
wherein the ray tracing process uses a ray tracing acceleration data structure indicative of a distribution of geometry for the scene to be rendered to determine geometry for the scene that may be intersected by a ray being used for a ray tracing operation (Luebke, ¶ 38, 46: “FIG. 3 illustrates an acceleration structure 300 representing a volume traced by a ray using the parallel processing unit 202…As shown, the acceleration structure 300 includes three levels below the root node 310. In one embodiment, each branch of the acceleration structure 300 may include any arbitrary number of levels. The number of levels for any branch within the acceleration structure 300 may be determined by using any number of factors, including, without limitation, the number of graphics objects within a scene, and the number of graphics primitives stored at each leaf node. Typically, when the volume of space represented by a given node includes only a small number of graphics primitives, the volume, and the associated node, are not subdivided further. As a result, the node representing such a volume is not associated with any child nodes. Such a node is called a leaf node, where a leaf node represents a volume of space that includes the small number of graphics objects or graphics primitives, such as a point, line segment, or triangle. In one embodiment, the child nodes of a given node include all nodes at any level below the given node that connect to the given node, either directly or through one or more intermediate nodes.”),
the ray tracing acceleration data structure comprising a plurality of nodes, each node associated with a respective one or more volumes within the scene, and wherein the plurality of nodes includes at least one parent node that is associated with a respective set of plural child nodes (Luebke, ¶ 40: “The level 1 nodes 320 each represent a volume that forms a portion of the volume by the root node 310. The root node 310 is connected to two level 1 nodes 320(0) 320(1), These two level 1 nodes 320(0) 320(1) are called the child nodes of the root node 310, and the root node 310 is the parent node of the two level 1 nodes 320. Taken together, the level 1 child nodes represent the entire volume represented by the root node 310.”),
with a parent node volume encompassing the volumes of its respective child nodes, the ray tracing process comprising testing rays for intersection with the volumes represented by the nodes of the acceleration data structure to determine geometry for the scene to be rendered that may be intersected by the rays (Luebke, ¶ 43-44: “During ray tracing, threads trace paths of light (rays) moving through a geometric scene, where the geometric scene includes one or more graphics objects. In some embodiments, the threads may determine the first graphics object encountered along a ray…During ray traversal, a thread receives a ray or a ray segment and a starting node within the acceleration structure 300, where the node includes a volume of space to be traced by the ray segment. Each ray segment includes a direction, a start point, and an end point. The thread determines whether the ray segment intersects with a graphics object included within any of the child nodes of the starting node”);
the method comprising:
obtaining for a parent node to be tested a set of node volume data indicative of respective volumes of child nodes associated with the parent node (Luebke, ¶ 44: “The thread visits each child node using any technically feasible approach, including, without limitation, in order of distance from the screen surface of the display device 103, or in order of likelihood that the child node contains a graphics object that intersects with the ray segment.”),
Luebke does not explicitly disclose, but Muthler discloses the node volume data comprising, for each child node for which volume data is stored, a respective set of base co-ordinate values, and the node volume data further comprising a set of one or more modifier values that are to be applied to the respective base co-ordinate values for the child nodes in order to determine an associated volume for the child node (Muthler, ¶ 56: “The traversal co-processor also accelerates the transform of each ray from world space into object space to obtain finer and finer bounding box encapsulations of the primitives and reduce the duplication of those primitives across the scene. Objects replicated many times in the scene at different positions, orientations and scales can be represented in the scene as instance nodes which associate a bounding box and leaf node in the world space BVH with a transformation that can be applied to the world-space ray to transform it into an object coordinate space, and a pointer to an object-space BVH.”)
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to consider the base coordinate and modifier as claimed.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation to “This avoids replicating the object space BVH data multiple times in world space, saving memory and associated memory accesses. The instance transform increases efficiency by transforming the ray into object space instead of requiring the geometry or the bounding volume hierarchy to be transformed into world (ray) space and is also compatible with additional, conventional rasterization processes that graphics processing performs to visualize the primitives.”(Muthler, ¶ 56). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because both references consider application of acceleration structures in the same context and can benefit from Muthler’s improvement.
Claim 2
Luebke discloses wherein the ray tracing acceleration data structure comprises a tree structure comprising a plurality of branches associated with a respective plurality of leaf nodes (Luebke, ¶ 39: “The acceleration structure 300 is shown in the form of a binary space partitioning tree.”), wherein each non-leaf in the tree structure is a parent node for a respective set of plural child nodes, each non-leaf node thereby being associated with a corresponding plurality of child volumes (Luebke, ¶ 40: “The level 1 nodes 320 each represent a volume that forms a portion of the volume by the root node 310. The root node 310 is connected to two level 1 nodes 320(0) 320(1), These two level 1 nodes 320(0) 320(1) are called the child nodes of the root node 310, and the root node 310 is the parent node of the two level 1 nodes 320. Taken together, the level 1 child nodes represent the entire volume represented by the root node 310.”), and wherein testing rays for intersection with the volume associated with a node comprises testing the rays for intersection with the volumes for each of plural set of child nodes for the node being tested and returning a result of the intersection testing for each of the child nodes of the node being tested (Luebke, ¶ 79: “Returning now to step 704, if the current node is a leaf node, then the method 700 proceeds to step 718, where the PPU 202 tests the ray or ray segment against the geometry objects or the geometry primitives associated with the leaf node. At step 720, the PPU 202 determines whether the ray has hit any geometric objects or primitives inside the leaf node.”).
Claim 3
Luebke does not explicitly disclose, but Muthler discloses wherein the node volume data includes an indication of whether the child node is a non-leaf node (Muthler, ¶ 334: “child pointers are stored in compressed form. [0336] Zero or more instance nodes, which provide a way to connect a leaf of one BVH to the root of another”)
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to consider a leaf indicator.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation to “This avoids replicating the object space BVH data multiple times in world space, saving memory and associated memory accesses. The instance transform increases efficiency by transforming the ray into object space instead of requiring the geometry or the bounding volume hierarchy to be transformed into world (ray) space and is also compatible with additional, conventional rasterization processes that graphics processing performs to visualize the primitives.”(Muthler, ¶ 56). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because both references consider application of acceleration structures in the same context and can benefit from Muthler’s improvement.
Claim 4
Luebke does not disclose, but Muthler discloses further comprising: for each child node, applying the set of one or more modifier values to the respective base co-ordinate values for the child node to determine a set of modified co-ordinate values usable to determine an associated volume for the child node (Muthler, ¶ 56: “The traversal co-processor also accelerates the transform of each ray from world space into object space to obtain finer and finer bounding box encapsulations of the primitives and reduce the duplication of those primitives across the scene. Objects replicated many times in the scene at different positions, orientations and scales can be represented in the scene as instance nodes which associate a bounding box and leaf node in the world space BVH with a transformation that can be applied to the world-space ray to transform it into an object coordinate space, and a pointer to an object-space BVH.”)
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to consider the base coordinate and modifier as claimed.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation to “This avoids replicating the object space BVH data multiple times in world space, saving memory and associated memory accesses. The instance transform increases efficiency by transforming the ray into object space instead of requiring the geometry or the bounding volume hierarchy to be transformed into world (ray) space and is also compatible with additional, conventional rasterization processes that graphics processing performs to visualize the primitives.”(Muthler, ¶ 56). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because both references consider application of acceleration structures in the same context and can benefit from Muthler’s improvement.
Claim 5
Luebke does not explicitly disclose, but Muthler discloses wherein the node volume data further comprises an origin co-ordinate, wherein the set of modified co-ordinate values are defined with respect to the origin co-ordinate (Muthler, ¶ 334: “Child complets of a given parent are preferably stored contiguously in memory and child pointers are stored in compressed form. [0336] Zero or more instance nodes, which provide a way to connect a leaf of one BVH to the root of another. An instance node may be a data structure that is also aligned. This structure may contain a pointer to the sub-BVH, flags that affect back-face culling behavior in the sub-BVH, and a matrix that corresponds to the first three rows of an arbitrary transformation matrix (in homogeneous coordinates) from the coordinate system of the top-level BVH (commonly “world space”) to that of the sub-BVH (commonly “object space”). The final row of the matrix in some embodiments is in some implementations implicitly (0, 0, 0, 1). [0337] Zero or more triangle or other primitive buffers, containing for example triangles stored either as a triplet of coordinates per vertex or in a lossless compressed format understood by the TTU 700”)
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to an origin.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation to “This avoids replicating the object space BVH data multiple times in world space, saving memory and associated memory accesses. The instance transform increases efficiency by transforming the ray into object space instead of requiring the geometry or the bounding volume hierarchy to be transformed into world (ray) space and is also compatible with additional, conventional rasterization processes that graphics processing performs to visualize the primitives.”(Muthler, ¶ 56). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because both references consider application of acceleration structures in the same context and can benefit from Muthler’s improvement.
Claim 6
Luebke does not explicitly disclose, but Muthler discloses wherein the origin co-ordinate comprises a co-ordinate of a vertex of the parent node volume (Muthler, ¶ 334: “Child complets of a given parent are preferably stored contiguously in memory and child pointers are stored in compressed form. [0336] Zero or more instance nodes, which provide a way to connect a leaf of one BVH to the root of another. An instance node may be a data structure that is also aligned. This structure may contain a pointer to the sub-BVH, flags that affect back-face culling behavior in the sub-BVH, and a matrix that corresponds to the first three rows of an arbitrary transformation matrix (in homogeneous coordinates) from the coordinate system of the top-level BVH (commonly “world space”) to that of the sub-BVH (commonly “object space”). The final row of the matrix in some embodiments is in some implementations implicitly (0, 0, 0, 1). [0337] Zero or more triangle or other primitive buffers, containing for example triangles stored either as a triplet of coordinates per vertex or in a lossless compressed format understood by the TTU 700”)
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to an origin.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation to “This avoids replicating the object space BVH data multiple times in world space, saving memory and associated memory accesses. The instance transform increases efficiency by transforming the ray into object space instead of requiring the geometry or the bounding volume hierarchy to be transformed into world (ray) space and is also compatible with additional, conventional rasterization processes that graphics processing performs to visualize the primitives.”(Muthler, ¶ 56). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because both references consider application of acceleration structures in the same context and can benefit from Muthler’s improvement.
Claim 7
Luebke does not explicitly disclose, but Muthler discloses wherein the node volume data is stored in a memory 7. and wherein the graphics processor when accessing the memory is configured to read in a certain amount of data in a single memory transaction, and wherein the node volume data for a single parent node to be tested is stored in a single block of data corresponding to the amount of data that can be accessed in a single memory transaction, the method thus comprising obtaining the node volume data for the parent node to be tested by fetching all of the node volume data for the parent node in a single memory transaction (Muthler, ¶ 126: “Retrieved portions of the BVH data structure may be cached in the level-zero (L0) cache 750 within the TTU 700 so the information is available for other time-coherent TTU operations, thereby reducing memory 140 accesses. Portions of the BVH data structure needed for the ray-complet test may be stored in a L0 complet cache 752 and portions of the BVH data structure needed for the ray-primitive test may be stored in an L0 primitive cache 754.”)
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to an origin.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation to “This avoids replicating the object space BVH data multiple times in world space, saving memory and associated memory accesses. The instance transform increases efficiency by transforming the ray into object space instead of requiring the geometry or the bounding volume hierarchy to be transformed into world (ray) space and is also compatible with additional, conventional rasterization processes that graphics processing performs to visualize the primitives.”(Muthler, ¶ 56). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because both references consider application of acceleration structures in the same context and can benefit from Muthler’s improvement.
Claim 8
The same teachings and rationales in claim 1 are appliable to claim 8 with Luebke and Muthler both disclosing equivalent graphics processors (See Luebke Fig. 2).
Claim 9
The same teachings and rationales in claim 2 are appliable to claim 9.
Claim 10
The same teachings and rationales in claim 3 are appliable to claim 10.
Claim 11
The same teachings and rationales in claim 4 are appliable to claim 11.
Claim 12
The same teachings and rationales in claim 5 are appliable to claim 12.
Claim 13
The same teachings and rationales in claim 6 are appliable to claim 13.
Claim 14
The same teachings and rationales in claim 7 are appliable to claim 14.
Claim 15
Examiner’s Interpretation:
Machine readable media can encompass forms of signal transmission media that falls outside of the four statutory categories of invention. MPEP 2106; citing In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 84 USPQ2d 1495 (Fed. Cir. 2007). A claim whose BRI covers both statutory and non-statutory embodiments embraces subject matter that is not eligible for patent protection and therefore is directed to non-statutory subject matter. MPEP 2106.
Claims 15-20 as drafted recite a non-transitory computer readable storage medium…
Because non-transitory explicitly excludes ineligible subject matter, the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed medium in view of Applicant’s specification covers only eligible subject matter.
Claim Mapping:
The same teachings and rationales in claim 1 are appliable to claim 15.
Claim 16
The same teachings and rationales in claim 7 are appliable to claim 16.
Claim 17
The same teachings and rationales in claim 4 are appliable to claim 17.
Claim 18
The same teachings and rationales in claim 5 are appliable to claim 18.
Claim 19
The same teachings and rationales in claim 6 are appliable to claim 19.
Claim 20
The same teachings and rationales in claim 3 (which incorporates parent claim 2) are appliable to claim 20.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN M GRAY whose telephone number is (571)272-4582. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 9:00am-5:30pm (EST).
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/RYAN M GRAY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2611
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