AMD introduces neural ray tracing

NIF is a significant departure from traditional BVH-based ray tracing.

May 21, 2025

Jon Peddie

Monte Carlo ray tracing, vital for photorealistic imagery, relies on ray casting and BVHs for acceleration. However, BVH traversal is irregular, hindering GPU performance despite specialized hardware. In contrast, neural networks offer GPU-friendly, regular computations. This raises the question: Could neural networks replace BVH traversal? Researchers are exploring this, aiming to leverage neural networks’ strengths. Innovations like the Neural Intersection Function seek to overcome BVH limitations, potentially revolutionizing real-time and offline ray tracing by offering a more efficient alternative for GPU architectures.The Monte Carlo process has been the foundation of physically accurate ray tracing for simulating complex light transport in 3D environments

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AMD introduces neural ray tracing

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